Apocalypse Cow (32 page)

James didn’t blink, just got to his feet and began stuffing rations into their five rucksacks. ‘Our best bet’s the way we came in, through the forest, but we’ve got no chance of doing it during the day. The guards would see us instantly.’

Terry slapped the side of the tent. ‘He has to be here for us. We must have popped up on their system when we registered, maybe our fingerprints or facial recognition. We need to get out of this tent, right now.’

‘Let’s find an empty tent to hide in until it’s dark,’ Lesley said. ‘Then we can get out through the woods.’

‘Won’t there be animals about?’ Geldof asked.

‘We’ll just have to take that chance.’

They sauntered out, strolling in the direction away from the reception area, trying to look nonchalant. Once they were far enough from their assigned living space, they began to look for an empty tent. Most were obviously occupied: either the residents were crouched outside, staring disconsolately into space, or clothes were slung over the guy ropes to dry during the break in the rain. Of the tents that showed no outward sign of occupation, the first five were taken, the owners leaping into startled life each time Lesley, who had drawn the
short
straw, stuck her head through the flap. Finally they found a vacant tent and piled in. They chewed on cereal bars and gulped down water as they waited.

Visions of Brown and his men combing the tents, throwing open flap after flap to point stubby little guns at the occupants, filled Lesley’s mind. She briefly wondered whether handing over the drive to Brown would appease him. She touched it again. No, there was no way she could give this up, not now. She’d been a quitter all her life, letting Colin and others push ahead of her in the queue. It had taken this whole sorry mess for her to realize it. Not this time. If she could get through this, her life would take a new course. If not, supposing Brown let her live, she would be back to making tea and covering charity drives at some local rag. That would be a recipe for a shotgun sandwich if ever there was one.

When Lesley crawled over to the tent flap to peer out, layer upon layer of dark clouds had slid over the sky and brought the camp into early dusk. It was probably dark enough for them to try. She turned back into the tent.

The others were all huddled together in the far corner. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘I need the loo first,’ Mary said.

‘Just pee outside the tent,’ James said. ‘You shouldn’t be wandering around in the open.’

Mary shook her head. ‘I’m not squatting on the ground.’

James looked like he was about to respond, but Lesley, who could see how close Mary was to cracking, interjected. ‘The toilets are just round the corner. I’ll go with her. We’ll be quick.’

James looked uncomfortable, but said nothing.

Lesley led Mary to the toilets, following the stench. They
were
pit latrines, quickly dug to cope with the thousands of unexpected guests, and were already straining to cope. Lesley had been to Glastonbury. On the last day, peeing involved closing your eyes, plugging your nose and hovering over the toilet while trying not to think about the accumulated foulness lurking below. These latrines were almost as bad, without the sweetener of drugs, booze and great music to make them bearable.

When Lesley had finished her pee and staggered outside, retching, she heard a strange sound. It had the feel of crowd noise, the way thousands of individual voices swell together to create a thrumming hum more than the sum of its parts, and once again she was reminded of a music festival. The toilets sat on a slight rise that afforded a view over the tops of the tents. Lesley looked towards the field butting onto the far end of the park, from where the sound seemed to be coming. A red glow shone from beyond the brow of the hill, like the first hint of sun on a summer morning. But the actual sun was somewhere behind the clouds off in the other direction.

‘That’s odd,’ Lesley said quietly.

The source of the glow crested the hill. Thundering towards the camp were hundreds, possibly thousands of cows. A good chunk of them were on fire. They came at speed, a ragged line of flame-grilled beef. Four helicopters appeared almost simultaneously, the front two spitting out long tongues of fire from their flanks. Rockets streaked from the rear helicopters, igniting explosions that sent shrapnel, smoke and cow parts billowing in all directions. Spotlights from the perimeter fence swivelled round and crawled restlessly over the advancing herd. The machine-gun posts opened fire, sending their rat-a-tat-tat echoing back across the lake.

Lesley yanked open the door of the toilet Mary was in and hauled her out. Already the air was tinged with the scent of burning flesh. Bemused refugees poked their heads out of their tents.

‘Run for the main entrance!’ she shouted at them as she hurried past, dragging Mary behind her.

Terry, James and Geldof were sprinting towards her. Over their shoulders, Lesley could see the cows bearing down on the perimeter fence. Tracer fire was cutting into them and, combined with the fire and explosions, was thinning the herd. The surviving cows, still numbering in their hundreds, smashed into and over the sandbags, dragging barbed wire behind, and crashed into the first line of tents. Screams joined the chaos of helicopter blades, gunfire and the crackle of flames.

They pelted in the opposite direction, against the flow of soldiers streaming towards the action. The going got tougher as more people piled into the path between the tents. When Lesley dared a glance back, the underside of the clouds glowed fierce red and the flames were licking higher as the burning cows set light to the tents. The car park was visible up ahead. Terry, now leading the way, put on an extra burst of speed, only to collide with somebody who had come running out from the pathway that intersected theirs. The two of them flew through the air before landing, Terry on top, and skidded several feet along the muddy ground. Another two figures emerged from the pathway and stopped to look at the tangle.

Two things happened at once: Lesley recognized the two men as Brown’s companions and a shout came from beneath Terry: ‘It’s them!’

The thugs reached inside their jackets, and Lesley saw her death coming in the smooth progression of a brawny forearm. She could not look away as the wrist of the cute young man cleared his jacket. She glimpsed the handle of a gun. That was as far as he got. A foot came flying out of nowhere to slam the would-be killer’s hand into his chest, sending him falling into his partner and the gun into the mud. The owner of the foot turned out to be James, who followed up the kick with a thudding punch to the Adam’s apple of the first gunman. He dropped to the ground, gasping for air. With a fluid speed Lesley didn’t think possible in a burnt-out dope fiend, James closed in and butted the second gunman in his scarred face. He staggered backwards, blindly squeezing off a shot that whizzed past Lesley’s head. James grabbed the gun hand. There came a sickening crack and a piercing scream. More thuds followed.

Lesley looked beyond, to where Terry and Brown were rolling in the mud. Something glinted with red light reflected from the fires: a knife, grasped by Brown and wavering inches from Terry’s eye. Terry had both his hands wrapped around Brown’s arm, but the knife-point was still edging down. Lesley closed the distance in six strides and unleashed the most powerful kick she could muster at Brown’s groin, which was perfectly exposed as his splayed knees struggled to find purchase in the mud. She connected squarely and his body rose several inches off the ground with the force of the blow. He toppled to the side, still holding the knife. Lesley kicked again, and again, finding arm, leg, stomach and head.

James nudged past her and planted a knee on Brown’s forearm, mashing it into the ground. The knife slipped from his grasp. Mary appeared from nowhere to slap furiously at
Brown’s
face, screaming incoherently. Brown didn’t make a sound until James pulled Mary off. Then he let out a quiet grunt.

Behind them, small-arms fire crackled throughout the camp, barely audible above the panicked din. The flames appeared closer. People ran past them in all directions, some of them heading back into the madness in their confusion.

‘We’re taking this prick with us,’ Terry said, kicking Brown, who had managed to get onto his hands and knees. ‘If he’s with us, then he isn’t following us.’

‘Fine,’ James replied. He slapped his hand onto Brown’s bald scalp and pointed a retrieved gun at his temple. ‘You saw what I did to your boys. If you give us any trouble, I won’t hesitate to kill you. Understand?’

Brown stared unwaveringly at James, spat out a mouthful of blood, and nodded. James pulled Brown to his feet and pushed him ahead. He fished in his pocket and pulled out the other gun. ‘Can anybody else shoot?’

‘I can,’ Lesley said.

Terry looked at her, eyebrow raised.

‘I joined a gun club for a story,’ Lesley said, not mentioning it was part of a planned exposé of how gun clubs were full of people like Thomas Hamilton, the perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre, just itching to open fire into a crowded shopping centre. They weren’t.

James tossed her the second gun. ‘Feel free to shoot him if he tries anything.’

They broke clear of the tents and stood before the main gate, beyond which lay the car park. The gate was unmanned: every available soldier had gone to do battle with the cows. James slid open the heavy latch and they stepped through.
The
helicopter that had brought Brown to the camp was still sitting there.

‘I don’t suppose you can get that up in the air?’ Lesley asked James, more in hope than in expectation.

‘Of course,’ James said, and set off at a sprint towards the craft.

Lesley turned to Terry. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

She kept the gun pointed at Brown as James weaved between the parked vehicles. Just before the helicopter, he veered off to the right and disappeared behind a Portakabin. They heard a thump, then a yell. James emerged holding a stick-thin man with a lazy eye by the scruff of his shirt.

‘Lay off, for fuck’s sake,’ the man said.

‘I will when you fly us out of here,’ James replied.

‘I can’t. The boss would kill me. Literally.’

James pointed at Brown, who was swaying on his feet and bleeding from several cuts. ‘You mean him?’

‘Fine, I’ll do it,’ the pilot said instantly.

James winked at Lesley. ‘You didn’t really think I could fly a helicopter?’

Holding the pilot before him, James led them to the craft. They crammed into the back, while James took his seat next to the pilot. ‘Any funny business and I’ll start breaking fingers, understand?’

The pilot began punching buttons and the blades chugged into life. They were still picking up speed when three cows came bursting out of the tents. They were little more than burning skeletons dripping liquid flesh by this point, but with the virus coursing through their veins they ran on blindly, straight into and through the gate, which James had left unlatched.

‘Take us up,’ James said as the cows streaked towards them down the pathway between the military vehicles.

The blades whirled faster and the helicopter began to shift lazily. The cows’ hellish faces, skin crackling and bubbling beneath the flames, bore down on Lesley as she looked out of the side window. Then the helicopter spurted into life properly, and they were above and to the side of the cows. The beasts careered through the spot where the helicopter had been only a few seconds before and, like sprinters diving for the line in a dead heat, crunched into the side of a tank. They collapsed to the ground.

The helicopter rose until it was hovering a few hundred metres above the camp, presenting them with a panorama straight from a war zone. On the far side, where the cows had ploughed through the barricades, flames engulfed the tents in an expanding semicircle. The cows that had survived the bullets and had not yet burned out like spent Molotov cocktails rampaged deep into the camp in all directions, leaving trails of fire in their wake. The effect was like a child’s drawing of the sun, beams radiating out from the fiery core. Here and there smaller spots of fire zipped to and fro. When one of them jumped into the lake, Lesley realized they were burning people. The four military helicopters hovered over the camp, in discriminately pouring ammunition down in the vague direction of the cows, which were now hopelessly mingled with the camp’s residents.

Lesley felt a sick rage build up in her. She turned and punched Brown in the temple as hard as she could. ‘Proud of yourself?’

His head jerked, but he did not topple.

‘You will regret that,’ he said calmly.

Mary, spurred by Lesley’s blow, lunged across for another slap frenzy. Geldof restrained Mary, while Terry put an arm round Lesley.

‘Leave it,’ he said.

She put her head into Terry’s chest, intending to hide her eyes, as James told the pilot to head south. But she forced herself to look up. She was a journalist, and it was her job to bear witness, no matter how horrific the event. The nose of the helicopter dipped and they picked up speed. Lesley did not look away until the last flicker of red light had disappeared from the horizon.

17

Going south

The helicopter flitted south, leaving behind the battle between man and beast, nature and technology. It was a struggle Terry knew the cows would lose, for they had neither defence nor attack against the airborne killers. But they would take plenty of people on the ground with them before they died. The irony was that the eventuality Terry and Lesley had feared most – Brown’s arrival – had saved them. Without his helicopter, they would have been mired in the carnage.