The Fallen (7 page)

He and Asefa loaded up their backpacks with anything they thought useful; first aid kit from the car, water, Leatherman and any food they could find; which consisted of some granola bars, peanuts and Somali bread rolls.  They tied additional water bottles under the bikes crossbars in some tattered plastic bags. 

Tim climbed onto his bike.  “OK, lets go.”

“Here,” said Asefa, throwing him a Somali scarf, “You are going to need that.” 

Tim tied the scarf around his head, put back on his sunglasses and they hit the road.  If it wasn’t for his worry for Sarah, this would feel like the beginning of another adventure to tell the folks about in the pub beer garden back home.  But setting off he felt it was the beginning of something worse. 

Chapter 17

Brian looked at Marius, who was happily munching on a Snickers bar.  Marius threw one over to him.  “Good for energy.”

They had been resting on the grass verge in the hospital car park for over an hour.  Brian took a bite of the Snickers; damn they had never tasted that good before.  He could taste all of the ingredients; the peanuts, the chocolate, the caramel but most of all the damn sugar.  He could feel the energy surging back through his body as it was nourished.  He tried to think of the last time he had physically exerted himself to the point of exhaustion but quickly gave up.  He should do it more often, once things had got back to normal.  Back to normal?  Whatever happened, he was pretty sure ‘back to normal’ was not going to be one of the scenarios.  He’d probably have to explain why he didn’t tell anyone else about his Faraday cage theory, even though he had thought there was only a point-one-percent chance of it having any affect and in any case he’d only thought of it with about five minutes to spare.  Could anyone else have made it to safety if he had told them?  Well a few more people could have fit into the MRI room, but not many, and if there had been a panic they’d never have got in and shut the door in time. 

His brain was flicking through the other possible shelters that may have protected people.  Anything that was specifically shielded against electromagnetic attack should have worked; at least a few government nuclear facilities should have had that.  The military had always been wary of a Russian electromagnetic attack on US soil; both sides had been aware of the risks EMP posed, should a nuclear warhead be detonated in the upper atmosphere.  When atomic bombs were tested at altitude, scientists had taken note of the mysterious side effect that disabled electronics for miles in all directions; and that was in the days when electronics were built like tractors on both sides of the Pacific.  So yes, there should at least be some military types buried underground somewhere wondering what the fuck happened and what they were supposed to do about it with what remained of their authority.  He was glad he wasn’t in their shoes. 

But who else?  Anyone who had been in the equivalent of a Faraday cage, but what would suffice?  Metal buildings had too many windows, air vents and doors, plus large sections that were often made of non-conductive materials.  Cars had rubber tyres and a metal construction making them good in a lightning storm, but the windows meant they offered no protection from a giant wave of EMP.  Something like a shipping container would be perfect, but you’d have to be in there with the door tightly shut, meaning it was unlikely that anyone had made it that way.  Submarines, yes they’d be ideal, as long as they hadn’t suffered too much damage; the point of a Faraday cage was that the metal cage you were in didn’t touch anything conductive inside the cage and he didn’t know enough about submarine design to say whether that was the case.  Perhaps the deep ocean also provided some protection, with its salts and dissolved metals, who knew?  He shuddered to think of the watery graves of thousands of sailors that may have instantly been created. 

And planes?  Jesus they must have all gone down, adding to the electrical fires already ablaze in the cities.  And what about the nuclear plants, how many were there in the country again? A hundred, hundred-and-fifty?  How did their fail-safes work?  He thought he’d seen something once that if the electricity to a plant failed, it would shut off an electro magnet holding the control rods in place, automatically dropping them into the reactor to shut it down.  But did that completely shut it down if nobody came to fix it, for days, weeks, longer?  He didn’t know, but wished he did.  Where was the nearest nuclear reactor anyway?  What a mess, what a fucking mess.  He hoped everyone woke up soon and started clearing it up before it got any worse… Ships cabins, in steerage, no windows? But the ships themselves would be in a bad way, probably ablaze and drifting in the oceans without their engines or instruments for navigation.

Marius broke his train of thought.  “Hey Brian, check this out.”

Marius was holding his keys near a metal railing when suddenly they jumped from his hand and attached themselves to the rail.  “Cool yah!  Das ist magnetised!”  He had an irritating habit of slipping back into German when he got excited. 

“Must have been some kind of effect of the swathe,” said Brain.

“Duh really?  I just thought it was hospital car park magic - of course it was the fucking swathe, but fuck knows how it did that!”

Brian pulled the keys off the railing and looked at them. “I guess it wasn’t straight EMP, it must have had some other properties, stuff we haven’t seen before; which explains the larger number of electrical fires and the affect on people.  EMP doesn’t usually have any impact on us.  We have a small amount of iron in our blood; but not enough that would allow our brains to fry like a micro-chip.”

He scanned the smoking horizon, while his mind scanned through the possible physical properties of the swathe.  What the hell could have caused what they were seeing before them?  Neither he nor Marius could come up with a rational answer based on the science they knew, nor an answer based on pure speculative guesswork.  “So where do we go from here?  Where are your parents and what about that girl I heard when I called your place?”

Marius kept his eyes fixed on the horizon.  “My parents are in Berlin, and I don’t think I will be flying home soon, do you?  The girl, I didn’t really know her – we met at a club last night and she left last night when I did.  She gave me her number, but you know, they say you should wait three days…”

“Well,”

“That was a joke Brian, I don’t think her number would work and I didn’t even know her second name, let alone her address.  If nothing had happened I don’t think I would have called her back anyway – she told me science was just a ‘belief’ and should be placed equally alongside all other beliefs! Ha!” He shook his head. “What about you Brian?  Family?”

“My sister is, was, teaching English in Taiwan.  Mum died a few years back, well you know that.”

“No I didn’t, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Marius, we had a twenty minute conversation about it six months ago, Jesus do you listen to anything I say?”

“Sorry Brian, you know I’m a terrible listener.  What about your Dad?”

“I haven’t seen Dad since he came-out and moved to San Francisco.  I think that’s what really killed mum and why Suzanne moved to Taiwan.  It wasn’t the whole gay thing; it was the way he did it.  I have no interest in tracking him down.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh, I mean he is your dad?”

“Look, even if I wanted to find him I have no idea where he might be or who he’s been shacking up with these days.  He had his chance to make amends and he failed us, so no Marius, I don’t think it’s a little harsh.”

They were silent for a few moments, before Marius finally said, “So just us then, yah?  Nobody to ride off into the sunset with and nobody we care about that we have a hope in hell of getting to within a year.”

“I don’t know about you Marius, but I do have friends you know - and no not just on the internet.”

“Any in Redding?”

“Uh no, but I have an ex-girlfriend who I do kind of still care about in Sacramento.”

“Sacramento is over two-hundred miles from here and from the looks of things we’d be lucky to make two miles with the roads as they are.  Try a car, go on try it, if you think they will still run.  You saw the door to the MRI room, even that was fucking fried Brian.”

He began to feel angry; with Marius; with the whole situation.  “Well we should at least try to save some more people around here - the fires are spreading, the smoke is spreading - there’s enough dry trees in this town to fuck things up pretty well for these people.”

A groan came from one of the men they had dragged out of the hospital who was lying on his front ten feet from them.  They both jumped and stared at him.  The man was heavily built, in his mid-forties and wearing a tool belt.  Brian recalled tripping over a hardhat, which had been on the floor beside him in the waiting room.  The man had a large nail driven through his left hand, probably the result of some construction site accident before the swathe hit. 

Without lifting his head from the floor, the man turned his head to face them, scraping it slowing across the tarmac as he did so and letting out an animalistic howl so loud that it made Brian instinctively take a step back and grab Marius.

The man slowly began to move, fingers twitching as if he’d found them for the first time.  He howled again, a terrible sound; part pain, part anger, part sadness.  It made Brian think of the time when as a boy he’d seen a rabid dog hit by a car.  Its back had been broken and its back legs dragged behind it like useless rags; half yelping in pain its foaming mouth was snarling and attempting to bite flesh from anyone who drew too close.  A policeman’s bullet ended its suffering but Brian could remember the terrified savage look in its dying eye.  The man had that same look – he looked half at them and half through them, reaching out to them with his nailed and bloodied hand.

A blood-curdling scream from behind them made them turn.  A young nurse had regained consciousness and was beating her fists and kicking her feet against the ground, like a demented overgrown child throwing a tantrum.  More groans and wild shouts started to emerge from the now moving sea of bodies.

Brian didn’t know which threat to face.  “Marius what the fuck is going on?”

“They are waking up, but what bits of them are waking up I am not sure.  We should leave, now.  Get the girl.”

Tabby had been kneeling by her mother twenty yards away and by the time she started screaming her screams were masked by those of a hundred others.

Brian jumped over groping hands and ran towards her, “Tabby!  We have to go!”

“But Mom!” she screamed, “We have to bring mom!”  She opened her mouth to say more but was silenced by a heavy hand grabbing her by the hair and yanking her head violently backwards.  Brian saw the velour sleeve before he saw her mother’s grimaced face.  Still lying down she had a fistful of her daughter’s hair and was shaking the girl’s head back and forth like a doll.

“Marius!” he shouted as he tried to restrain the arm while plying the fingers, “Marius help us!”

Marius ran over and grabbed the mother’s arm while Brian wrenched the hand from the girl’s hair, already bleeding at the scalp.  They both jumped back out of the woman’s reach and stared at her.  The mother was still grasping and rocking her bulk back and forward to try and reach them, she was crying hysterically like a baby but swiping viciously. 

“Mom!” cried the girl, “Mom?”

The mother didn’t seem to recognise her daughter, but was grasping for her as if she was a toy they had taken away.  

“Your mother is,” Brian paused.

“Is very sick,” said Marius, “We need to all go now and find her and these other people some help, OK, but we have to go right now.”

The girl tried to push Marius away.  “I’m not going! I’m staying with Mom!”

Marius grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder.  “We are leaving,” he shouted so violently that the girl was momentarily stunned into silence, before screaming and beating him on his back.  He took off across the car park and Brian ran after him.  The cries and screams from all around them grew louder; people waking from a nightmare to find they are somewhere far, far worse.  They ran aimlessly down streets, not knowing where to turn.   Some people were burning; screaming but not running from the fires that were starting to consume their bodies.  The town smelled like a BBQ.  Brian felt sick to his stomach and his head was starting to spin.  He heard Marius shout, “To the river!” but couldn’t sense which direction they were headed.  He could barely see Marius and lost sight of him altogether at times but finally the smoke cleared and they arrived at the river bank.  He choked on the fumes.  “Now what?”

“Now we find a boat!” said Marius, just as the girl wriggled free and ran back into the swirling smog.  “Stop her!” Marius yelled but she had already run past Brian and was lost from view.  Brian ran back into the smoke but knew instantly it was hopeless; even if she could find her way back to the hospital he doubted he could, and he did not want to think what would happen to her if she did make it back. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder; it was Marius.  “Forget it Brian, she’s gone.”

“She’s not
gone
Marius! She’s in there somewhere; we should go and try to find her.” But he knew he was fooling himself as he said it.

Marius looked at him and clenched his shoulder so he felt it.  “If you go back in there you will most likely die.”

Brian broke down and started to cry. “Fuck!” The tears drew clean lines in the grime on his cheeks.  “What the fuck are we going to do, what the fuck are we going to do?”

Chapter 18

“Look out snake!”

Tim heard Asefa in just enough time to swerve around the twelve-foot long black mamba squirming in the centre of road.  He’d been too busy looking for danger in the bush to watch the way ahead.  Oddly the snake didn’t lunge at him or chase him.  He’d heard plenty of stories from NGO workers and locals alike about mambas that could move as fast as a racehorse; that were as aggressive as a lion; hunting a man down, following him into his house and cornering him in the dark; they would supposedly rise up to eye height and strike you repeatedly in the face or heart, when just a scratch from its fang was enough to kill you.  He looked back, the creature was still writhing and he thought he saw it biting itself.