She drank the herb tea thirstily, poured herself some more. Don't forget to fill your carrier bags with food before you go because you'll need it. Then with a jolt she remembered Jon. Jon! She could picture his face clearly now, the misty profile which had been eluding her for so long. Her husband. A pang of bitterness because he had another woman, probably that Atkinson girl was with him right now. Jealousy, then guilt. She had had other men too but now it was time for a reconciliation. She and Jon could both work at something they had let slip, a marriage that had slid for years and was nearly at the bottom of the slope. But she had to get home, that was a priority. Her one chance to put things right.
She loaded her bags with food and went back outside into the street. A milling throng, the traffic all snarled up, people hurrying, clambering over abandoned vehicles in their haste.
Jackie fought her way through, joined a stream going the other way. Don't go to First Terrace this time. Ignore everybody else. You're on your own. Head south.
She kept going, recognised landmarks, lost them again but knew she was going in the right direction. People lay in the road, on the pavements, some of them dead, not because of their awful affliction but simply because they had been trampled by the crowds. A crying child came towards her, its features beginning to peel and harden but she ignored it. Don't stop for anybody, you can't help them. Head for home whilst you still know where home is. South . . . south . . . south . . .
Days of burning sunshine, cool nights that brought relief. Sleeping in long grass, heather, the air filled with strange grunts and cries, people incessantly on the move. She hid; they must not find her, this time there must be no Kuz.
Walking, sleeping, eating wild fruit and herbs after her own food had run out, raiding the larders of deserted cottages whenever she came upon an isolated dwelling. Mile after mile each day but never seeming to arrive anywhere, knowing that she was heading in the right direction.
A long trek throughout a summer that waned and eased into autumn. Always on the move. The hills were full of restless people, some of them congregating into groups which built stone structures, prepared for the onset of winter. Fools, you will not survive when the cold comes, head south whilst there is still time or else seek the protection of proper dwellings built to resist the blizzards.
And that was how she had arrived at this cottage in the hills, alive and warm whilst everybody else was either dead or gone. Waking, only the figments of those strange dreams lingering on, frightening her because she was all alone. She should be dead like everybody else who had been caught out by the winter. Perhaps it would have been better that way. But she still had the will to fight and live.
No longer did that face evade her. Now she knew it, saw its every detail as clearly as though she had only gazed upon it yesterday. Jon! And only the snow was preventing her from going to him.
Endless days spent in keeping the fire going; fortunately the shed at the bottom of the garden was well stocked with coal. Surviving.
And at nights the dreams came again. Always Jon, how it had once been between them and how it would be when they were together again.
A bright sunny morning, the snow crisped by a severe overnight frost. Jackie had stoked up the fire, opened the door and looked out upon an arctic world. She tested the drift that smothered the lean-to and it bore her weight. The snow was walkable.
Jubilation, fears crowding in on her. If she left would she find her way in this white wilderness? If she did not then she faced certain death once night fell and the temperature dropped. She shivered, her skin goose pim-pling. And then she heard the approaching helicopter.
She was familiar with the big sky-birds, the way they flew deafeningly across the countryside, hovered, sometimes landed and men got out. Men with guns, searching. For what?
She fled back inside, forced the warped door closed. The helicopter would pass over, soon be gone. Its roar vibrated some ornaments on the mantelshelf and she knew that it was directly overhead, maybe barely higher than the roof. Whining angrily, sending a stab of stark fear into her palpitating heart. As if it scented her.
It wasn't going away! Even louder. She clasped her hands to her ears, stumbled for the cover of the old sofa which had been her bed for so long, flung herself full-length behind it, could not shut out the noise.
Louder and still louder, the glass in the rotted window frames rattling, threatening to fall out. Wind gusting, icy unnatural blasts finding their way in under the ill-fitting door. Then silence.
Jackie cringed, moaned softly to herself, aware that the machine had landed as she had seen others do from time to time when she had been living in the settlement. Noises, something slammed, echoed mechanically. Voices. The awful realisation that the men were coming here, that they had spied the smoke from the chimney and had put down to investigate.
Footsteps. She heard the door being forced back, curled herself up into a ball, shut her eyes tightly. Please don't see me, don't take me away. If that happened she would never ever see Jon again, months of hoping and surviving all for nothing.
There's gotta be somebody around.' The man who entered was dressed in thick flying clothes, still wore his goggles which hid most of his rather weak features and gave him a sinister appearance. 'It's like they say, there's no smoke without fire.'
'And there's a fire all right.' The second man pointed to the fireplace with the barrel of his .357 Magnum. 'Let's check upstairs.'
Jackie heard their heavy footsteps on the stairs, across the small landing and into the bedroom directly above. A moment's silence and then they were coming back downstairs. That bugger's been dead for some time.' The speaker wrinkled his nose beneath his goggles. 'So there's gotta be somebody around to have lit that fire. Hey . . . look there!'
Jackie's brain spun as the sofa was dragged roughly to one side, found herself looking up into the barrel of the Magnum and knew only too well what it could do. One blast and she would be dead instantly. She had seen a youth shot once who had foolishly stoned a search party of soldiers. Please don't kill me. I don't want to die any more.
'Jeez!' The first man let a slow grin spread across his face. 'D'you see what I see, Bill?'
'For one o'them she's fuckin' beautiful,' his companion replied. 'Now fancy findin' her in a land where everybody else is dead.'
Jackie Quinn cringed, knew only too well what they were thinking, remembered the expressions on the faces of the throwbacks who had broken into the house in First Terrace that night so long ago. Certain aspects of behaviour did not change even over a four-thousand-year gap. She knew male lust when she saw it, knew what she would have to endure. And afterwards they would either kill her or take her away with them.
They pulled her roughly to her feet and she felt the coldness of the automatic barrel against her neck, their hands smoothing over her, loosening the ties on her hide dress, baring her breasts, feeling at them.
'See this?' The one who had pushed his goggles up on to his forehead tapped the solid steel of the Magnum. 'Any trouble and BANG. Get it?'
She understood, nodded. The second one forced the door shut, poked at the fire. They weren't in any hurry. She let the other one undress her, didn't resist. The sooner it was over, the better. She lay back, watched as they began to take off their heavy clothing, saw how aroused they were. She turned her head away, did not want to watch.
Then they took her. And throughout the pistol was not far from her head. She closed her eyes, shuddered as they pawed at her, changed over, changed back again; kept going until they were spent.
Finally they were dressing, throwing her clothing at her. 'Get dressed, you stinking whore, you're coming with us. And when our boffins get doing things to you, you'll wish you were back here with us having the arse fucked off you!'
Jackie cried, the first time she had cried since . . . she could not remember the last time. Physical and mental hurt that had built up inside her for months suddenly bursting its dam. Sobbing, trembling, trying to fasten the thongs on her hide garments with shaking fingers.
'She cries.' The pilot gave a guttural laugh. 'Make a note of that for the files, Bill. We've heard'em scream but we've never yet found one that cried. Don't look so worried, Bill, they can't talk. But even if she did manage to squeal nobody would give a shit. They're animals.'
They pushed her ahead of them out through the door, the gun jabbing into her back. She saw the helicopter standing on a flat piece of ground that the gales which had brought the blizzards had swept clear, a huge silent metal bird of prey. And it had found its prey.
Please let me go, you've had what you want. Please! She stopped and something hard struck her across the back of the head so that she stumbled and nearly fell. She almost blacked out and then they were forcing her up the rungs of the short ladder into the helicopter, shoving her into the rear seat.
'Let's go out of this God-awful place,' the co-pilot muttered. 'I can't wait to get back to base. Hell, imagine anybody living out here.'
The chassis vibrated and Jackie clung to her seat. The man called Bill still had the pistol trained on her, maybe thought that she would attack them in a wild frenzy, afraid of a weeping girl who asked nothing else than to be freed back into this environment of death.
She felt the helicopter begin to take off, rising vertically, shuddering, straining, roaring its ferocity at the world below. A stark white unbroken landscape beneath, rolling hills that went on and on.
Jackie peered down, mutely screamed her frustration and hopelessness. It had taken her months to trek back here; she had almost made it back to her mate and then suddenly these men had appeared and were spiriting her away. Primitive fear, she wanted to leap out, to fall, to die down there in the snow. Because it was home.
Faster now, the scenic view a dazzling blur in the bright sunlight, the tops of coniferous trees dull green where they poked clear of the snow. Scattered dwellings like symmetrical buried boxes. All being left behind.
A sudden jerk that threw her forward so that she banged her head, cried out. The helicopter bucked, sent her slithering on to the floor. The two men were trying to shout to each other and she felt their fear rather than heard it, Bill's eyes wide with terror behind his thick goggles.
And at that moment the noise cut out. Nothing; just a rush of air, a sensation of dizziness, the only roaring that in her own ears.
'For fuck's sake!'
A scream, she thought it came from the pilot. Clung tightly to the stanchion of her seat, shut her eyes tightly.
'Fucking shit!' Both men were yelling, screaming, struggling desperately with levers on the instrument panel.
Plunging downwards, the rotor blades spinning slower and slower.
Jackie did not even brace herself for the inevitable impact, just saw in her mind the face which no longer eluded her, wept because she remembered more clearly than ever now, and knew that she would never see it again.
And then they hit the snow-covered hillside, bounced, slewed, the helicopter breaking up and leaving a trail of debris in its wake as it rolled downhill, finally struck an outcrop of rock and was crunched into a ball of mangled metal.
REITZE HAD coughed and spat blood into the wash-basin that morning, then vomited, clinging on to the stand, otherwise he would have fallen. The room around him swam and he had to wait for it to steady.