Flare

Chapter 44

It was still dark when Emily nudged me awake, although the first tendrils of pre-dawn light were mingling with the vibrant colours from the aurora, making them fade as we turned towards the sun.

She’d stopped the vehicle by the side of the motorway, her face pinched with tiredness.

“You want me to take over?” I said, stretching out a cramp in my calf.

“Please, I’m exhausted.” She left the engine running as we swapped seats, and I pulled away, almost stalling when I dumped the clutch.

I pulled back out onto the road, wondering where we were. There were a lot of abandoned vehicles dotted about, some just left where they had stopped, others where they had ploughed into other vehicles or the central reservation.

I looked over at Emily to see that she was already asleep, head tucked into one shoulder, so I kept my attention on the road and kept my speed to a steady fifty, figuring that would give me enough stopping should something unexpected loom out of the darkness.

It was almost twenty minutes before I saw a sign, telling me that we were approaching the junction of the M42. That meant we were within spitting distance of Birmingham, and I began to search the horizon for any sign of the fires that had destroyed so many of the big cities.

A few minutes later I saw the slip road and took it, curving around onto the 42 and towards the M6 toll road. Heading through the city would have been faster, but I had no idea how bad it was and I had no wish to drive into any trouble.

As the sky lightened, I saw a thick plume of smoke rising to the northeast, right above the city centre, and I knew I’d made the right choice. If anyone was left they’d be starving by now, and our vehicle would be too tempting a target for them to pass up.

We made good time on the M42, then onto the M6 toll past the now defunct electronic tagging system, the tall buildings of Birmingham’s city centre visible to our left.

I could see several different plumes of smoke now, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was still burning after so many days.

My thoughts, as they often did when I had time to myself, turned to Melody. I wondered if they were at her grandparents’ house, and if so how her mother had coped with the lack of amenities. She’d always been one for getting her hair and nails done, sometimes as often as three times a week, never daring to so much as open the door to the postman without hours of makeup being carefully applied.

Thinking of Angie made my heart sink. I had to face the very real possibility that she would be coming back with us, her sharp voice harping on at me from the back seat as if the apocalypse were somehow my fault.

And then, of course, we couldn’t just leave Angie’s parents behind, and what had been a simple grab and run mission in my head was suddenly laid out for what it really was; a nightmare in which I carted my ex-inlaws halfway back across the country to the small cottage just outside Redhill.

It was almost enough to make me stop the car, but it would be worth it, all of it, just to have Melody safe.

I kept going as the sun climbed into the sky, fluffy white clouds dotted here and there like cotton wool. It was another beautiful day, and had I not been so tired and worried I might have enjoyed it a little more. Instead, I made and discarded plans for routes that would get us back to Ralph and Harriet while avoiding the whole Oxford area, realising that we would most likely have to drive the long way around the M25.

I was so caught up in my musings that I almost didn’t see the roadblock until it was too late, assuming that it was just a pile of cars strewn across most of the road. It was only when a figure with a rifle stood on the roof of a truck and aimed his weapon at us that I realised what it was.

“Shit!” I slammed the brakes on, causing Emily to bang painfully into the dashboard.

“Ow! What the hell?”

I said nothing, but simply pointed at the two figures that approached us from the scrub at the side of the road. Neither of them were armed, but the one with the rifle pointed at the windscreen was more than enough for me to discard any thoughts of trying to drive away.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Emily muttered, easing back the slide of her stolen pistol and making sure a round was chambered. “What the hell do they want?”

The men approaching the car didn’t seem threatening, one of them even waving at us once he had our attention, but there’s something about having a gun pointed at you that makes you feel at a disadvantage, no matter how friendly someone seems.

Both men were dressed in police uniform, right down to black Kevlar vests and handcuffs sitting proud on their belts, but after the last week I knew we couldn’t take anything at face value.

The men were within a dozen feet of the vehicle when Emily rolled down her window.

“That’s close enough,” she called, “what do you want?”

One of them took a last step and shrugged.

“Just checking who you are,” he said with a smile, “we’ve not seen many working cars, and those few we have seen tend to be trouble.”

“Are you really police officers?” The question was blunt but fair, and the man nodded.

“That we are. We’re out of Stafford, a few miles up the road. We’ve managed to get a fair sized group of people together, so we’ve got men on all the major roads making sure we turn trouble away before it gets to us, if you get my drift.”

Emily nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that. Look, we’re trying to get to Manchester, my friend’s little girl is up there. Are we ok to go through?”

The man smiled again. “Well you two don’t seem like trouble. You’d be welcome to stop at the camp if you want a bite to eat to see you on your way? It’s about a mile down the road.”

My stomach rumbled at the thought of food and Emily thanked him as he waved to the man with the rifle, who promptly jumped down off the truck.

I waved as I pulled away, and Emily took the pistol from where she’d had the tip of the barrel pressed against the inside of the door.

“That was unexpected,” I said as we drove through a narrow gap in the barricade, having to steer around another car set just back from the main group of vehicles.

“You’re telling me. I automatically assumed it was an ambush, bloody good job I didn’t shoot him just to be on the safe side!”

“How close were you?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The camp was indeed only a mile or so down the road and visible from the Motorway. A shantytown had sprung up around several old farm buildings that were enough like Ralph’s cottage to make me suddenly homesick.

I pulled onto a slip road and then took another left, finding a large metal gate at the top of a dirt track with a man and a woman guarding it with shotguns.

I wound down the window as they approached, guns held loosely but ready should they need them.

“Morning,” I said with a smile, “the police let us through, said it would be ok to stop for some food.”

“Where you headed?” The woman asked, blowing on a stray lock of hair that fell across her face.

“Manchester.”

She nodded as if I’d passed some kind of test, then gestured to her companion who opened the gate and waved us through.

We bumped down the farm track and into the yard, slowing as a group of kids ran past shouting with pleasure as they chased a bright red football across the concrete.

The sound of the vehicle brought more than a few curious faces to windows and doors as I pulled up. A sea of tents had been set up just behind the main house, and more bright canvas could be seen inside a nearby barn, giving the place an almost festival air.

Half a dozen men and women came out of the house to greet us as we got out of the car, including a woman in police uniform with three pips on her shoulders and a huge man with an equally massive beard and a green wax jacket.

We introduced ourselves and were introduced in turn to the small group, but only the names of Lindsay, the Chief Inspector, and Max, the farmer whose land we were on, stuck.

“Where have you come from?” Lindsay asked as we were shown into the kitchen and sat at a table where several other people were already eating. The large room was crowded but there were still seats to spare as two men in grubby white aprons managed half a dozen pans on a stove almost identical to Harriet’s.

“I came from Brighton originally,” I said, “but we’ve been all over.”

Lindsay nodded. “We’ve had quite a few people through, going north and south, where are you headed?”

“Manchester, I’ve got a daughter up there.”

She nodded, but I caught the quick glance she threw at Max, who shrugged.

“May as well tell’em,” he said in a thick accent, “got a right to know.”

“Tell us what?” I said, suddenly worried.

Lindsay sighed and sat at the table, an old man scooting his chair over to give her room.

“Manchester was badly hit by the fires,” she said slowly, “and we’re worried about radiation as well.”

“Radiation?”

She nodded. “There was an explosion at Heysham power station. No one knows how bad it is but we have to assume the worst.”

My heart thudded in my chest as the news sank in.

“How far is that from Manchester?”

“Sixty or seventy miles, but without computers there’s no way of predicting the fallout pattern because we can’t see what the weather is doing. For all we know the radiation has gone west, but it’s equally possible that all the land between here and the power plant is already irradiated. I’m really sorry, but even if you do find your daughter alive and well, it still may be too late.”