'I want to go with you,' Sylvia cried, clutched at one of them. Til walk, I promise I won't be a nuisance, but don't leave me behind!' A flash of lucid speech and then it was gone again and words were meaningless to her.
They looked at one another, grunted. Arguing again. They had no room for passengers, anybody who went on the trek had a part to play. You must help to carry the sick, woman. And if you fail then you will be abandoned. Nobody will help you.
Sylvia took the handles of the stretcher, the boy's mother going in front. Between them they could manage now that the weight of the adult corpse had been removed. A slow procession, the men in front, the women bringing up the rear.
The snow eased off a little and away to her right Sylvia saw and recognised the outline of the Quinn smallholding, like a miniature toy farm set out on an uneven white sheet. One brief wave of nostalgia but she pushed it forcibly away. Jon was nothing to her, never had been, only somebody to fill a gap while Eric was away. A lump caught in her throat. Poor Eric, this didn't have to happen to him. But it had. If only she hadn't been one of the unlucky survivors. But she would not survive long now, none of them would. Eric? Who was Eric? Her mind slipped again, became a vacuum.
The descent was steep and slippery. Once the woman in front lost her footing and somehow Sylvia managed to prevent the stretcher from tipping over, steadied it down on to the snow. The hide blankets slid to one side and she saw the boy. Oh God, his body shook with the fever, he was delirious, mouthing meaningless animal noises. His bright eyes saw her, weak arms tried to reach out for her but they had not the strength; he thought she was his mother.
Sylvia helped the distraught woman wrap him up again and then they had to hurry to catch up with the others. Once they reached the floor of the narrow valley their pace was slowed, the snow much deeper here, wading up to their thighs.
Sylvia wished she could ask them where they were going. There was a definite purposefulness about their route, an urgency driving them on, keeping them going when their physical strength was failing. She glanced up at the sky, judged that it was well into the afternoon, the sun a fiery red ball now that the clouds had dispersed. Tonight there would be a hard frost.
They paused for a spell and she was handed some strips of dried meat, bit on it hungrily but had difficulty in chewing it. It had a smoky flavour where it had been dried over a smouldering fire. Revolting, but she knew she had to eat it. Then, wearily, they set off again.
She heard the approaching helicopter long before it came into sight over a strip of woodland in front. The whining, chainsaw-like noise getting louder and louder, her companions looking at one another in alarm, setting down their loads. Frightened, wanting to run but not knowing in which direction to flee. It seemed to kick-start her memory, jerked her back to civilised thinking.
'It's all right, it's a helicopter,' she shouted. They would not have understood even if they had been able to hear her above the din.
A helicopter! Her brain reeled, a shipwrecked mariner suddenly seeing the smoke from an approaching steamer on the skyline after months of waiting in vain. Numbed, fumbling for some garment to wave madly, reflexes stalling. It might go away, it might not see you. Hurry!
And just as the whirling blades came into sight Sylvia flung herself headlong into the snow, pressed herself flat. Please God it doesn't see me. I don't want to be picked up, I don't want to be rescued! Crazy, she knew it was, but all the same she buried her face in the snow, clasped her hands over her eyes. Don't stop, please don't stop!
Deafening, directly overhead, seeming to hover. If they land then I'll refuse to go with them, they can't make me.
I don't want to go back. I want to be out here with Eric. He's dead, I know it, but I still want to be with him.
Realisation that the noise was receding. Sylvia turned her head, glanced upwards. A huge unwieldy mechanical bird droning on up the valley, its dark blue paintwork in stark contrast to the dazzling whiteness of the hills and fields. Going away. If it had seen her then it wasn't stopping. She felt slightly dizzy, afraid.
The other woman was screaming hysterically, the limp form of her son clutched to her, his arms and legs dangling limply. Shaking him, slapping him, but his head lolled to one side.
Two of the men had come across to her, were grunting and gesticulating angrily. The boy is dead, we cannot take him with us. We cannot delay. The woman shouted back at them, stepped away, spat when one of them reached out an arm. She was not giving him up, refused to cast his body to one side for the creatures of the night hours to feed on.
The procession was moving on again. Sylvia glanced down at the stretcher; it would not be needed any longer. The woman was standing back waiting. Either she was going to stay behind or else follow at a discreet distance. Sylvia didn't know which, only that the other spurned company.
Sylvia followed the others, did not attempt to catch up with them. They were on a road of some kind now, the going much easier. Houses, scattered farms and cottages, she saw a sign but the letters had been blotted out by drifted snow. It didn't matter, names had ceased to mean anything; one place was much the same as another.
Another hour and it would be dark. Sylvia wondered where they were going to spend the night. There were always deserted houses to be used but she guessed that her companions would spurn habitation beyond the status of crude stone dwellings, suspecting a trap, claustrophobic because the chill night air was shut out. She had lived in one once; she half-remembered it.
The woman carrying her dead child was stilt following, a hundred yards or so behind them, wailing her grief, staggering under the weight of her burden. She would not be able to keep up much longer. Once she stopped she would die because she did not have the will to live. In all probability she would not survive the coming night.
Dusk, a saffron sky streaked with the last reflections from the sun which had dipped behind the distant jagged mountain peaks. On the left was a village, its church spire rigid and defiant in this white wilderness. But the party was veering off, taking a narrow lane bordered by high snow-capped hedgerows. Barely more than a crawling pace now, the journey having sapped their weakened bodies.
It was almost dark when they saw the ruined castle, skeletal remains of an isolated bastion which had once withstood the onslaught of Welsh raiders across the border, an impression of top-heaviness as it perched on a hillock, still on guard in spite of its crumbling stonework.
One of the party had slumped to the ground, the others clustering round him. They made no attempt to pick him up. The sick must be left to die. They staggered on, came to the foot of the knoll, the small castle sinister and forbidding in the failing light. Sylvia shuddered, she could almost feel the aura of death that had surrounded this place for centuries. In the distance somebody was wailing, grief-stricken cries that hung in the still frosty air. It was probably the woman who cradled her dead offspring, unable to continue any further. Eventually the noise died away.
The ruins were already occupied, another group of a dozen or more tribesmen engaged in building a fire with dead wood which they had dug out of the drifts. There was neither animosity nor friendship shown towards the newcomers, just an acceptance of their presence.
With some difficulty they managed to ignite the woodpile, the yellow flames having to fight for a hold on the wet kindling, hissing angrily, determined to conquer, giving off a strange eerie glow.
Sylvia found herself scrutinising the faces of the strangers, peering at each in turn; hope, despair, still hoping.
Eric was dead, he would not be here. She tried to remember what he looked like but her memory failed her.
Her reasoning was becoming dulled, even she realised it, knew vaguely what was happening to her. Very soon I shall be one of you. She felt at her face, her cheeks were rough and coarse and that line of fluffy hair along her upper lip, which she had creamed for years, had grown strong and prickly. Her armpits were bushes of coarse hair, her breasts full as though they were in milk.
She did not feel the cold as she had done earlier, huddling now with the others in the damp pit which had once been a prison from which captured enemy soldiers rarely emerged alive. No longer an outcast, she mingled with the others, sought the warmth of their bodies. They were her people, always had been.
A long cold night, the condensation on the stone walls a sheet of ice. Sleeping; dreams which were beyond her comprehension now, of strange places where the elements did not penetrate, where there was food in abundance. Fearful of this unfamiliar environment, shying away from it. Running to the hills in search of her own kind.
In search of a man who had once been her mate.
And with the coming of daylight she no longer questioned her presence here, helped the others to search for firewood amongst the frozen snowdrifts. The clouds were building up again and they all knew that it was going to snow once more, that further travel was inadvisable. They had a supply of dried meat but they needed to keep the fire going. They would have to hole up here until the weather changed.
When Sylvia went back inside she noticed that two of the men had not risen from their sleeping positions of the previous night. She knew they were dead, the others realised it, too. Everybody accepted it; later the corpses would be dragged outside and that would be the end of it. Where there was life there was always death.
By mid-morning it had begun to snow and the wind had risen, driving it against the north-west face of the castle, buffeting the ancient walls mercilessly as though it sought to break through to those sheltering inside. A ceaseless onslaught.
Sylvia helped the women prepare the food, noticed how two more of them coughed and spat blood. Her head ached, she felt unnaturally hot, her forehead damp when she wiped it with the back of her hand. A soreness in her lungs, but there was no blood when she coughed.
And each night she dreamed of one who had once been her mate. She saw his face, heard him calling her. She knew she had to go to him, that she must leave this place.
On the fourth day she left the castle, took her opportunity when she and two of the other women had gone out to search for firewood. The snow was deep, travelling was not easy, and every movement required a determined effort. If her lover had not been constantly calling her she would not have gone. She would have stayed and died in that underground place; somebody died every day.
She had to rest every hundred yards or so and now when she coughed there was a tinge of red on the snow. A desperation that overcame her waning strength, an inexplicable instinct urging her to retrace her steps of the last few days. She must return to the hills, she should never have left them.
And all the time she heard her mate calling her, a call which could not be denied. Floundering, falling, dragging herself through deep snowdrifts. Crawling when she could no longer walk, sobbing her frustration.
Until finally she could go no further, lying there in the frozen snow and listening to the voice of her lover vibrating in her pain-crazed brain. Waiting for nightfall, for surely then he would come to her, carry her back to the hills which would be their rightful Kingdom now that everybody else had left.
But he did not come. And eventually he stopped calling her.
JACKIE DID not go upstairs to check on Rod Savage. She knew he was dead and there was nothing to be gained by going to look at him. Secretly she was aware of her fear of death. It had not always been like that, she had seen plenty of it these last few months and had accepted it. But now it was different, she did not know why.
The snowstorm petered out later the next day, but the drifts were piled high up against the walls of the small cottage. Travelling was out of the question, she had no choice other than to remain where she was.
Yet her instinct to leave was strong. Very strong. Like the wild geese experiencing the urge to fly south with the onset of winter, so she became restless. Pacing the living-room hour after hour, staring out of the windows at the drifted snow, contemplating digging herself out of the garden. But it would not end there; miles of deep snow lay between herself and the freedom she craved. In the end she resigned herself to staying, remaining in the cottage, a corpse on the bed upstairs for company.
Two nights later the dreams began, weird frightening dreams as though a hitherto closed door of her subconscious had opened up, a computer that had been given an extra key and processed data which had previously been denied it.
Delany's again, her surroundings so familiar that it might have been only yesterday that she had staggered in there. You're not well, you need to rest. 'It's the Russians that have done this to us.' She ignored the man loitering in the craft centre, pushed past him and went on into the restaurant. Empty, as she knew it would be. The ovens still steamed, gave off an appetising aroma of vegetarian dishes. I'm not well, there's something wrong with my skin, it's smarting and I can't think properly. Yes, you can. Fight it, don't succumb to it.
Seated at a table, a cup of steaming herb tea before her, inhaling the vapour; it seemed to clear her head a little. Think, girl, think it all out carefully. You made the wrong decision last time; this is your final chance.
The steam quelled the feeling of dizziness, her brain shuttered like an old plate camera, came back to reality. People were shouting outside, sirens blaring, police and ambulances stuck in the traffic jam. What the hell was going on? A nuclear attack?