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bracken, artificiality spoiling the natural scenery.
He almost ignored it. It could have been an empty plastic fertiliser bag blown
off Winder's fields (damn the man, he would never understand that he was
polluting the environment with his chemicals). Or a discarded bedsheet dumped
by selfish Jitterbugs. Or ... he didn't have to go and see, it wasn't even his
wood, but he found himself laying down the chainsaw and walking in that
direction. A hunch, a very uneasy one.
Realisation came slowly because it took him several seconds to identify the
remains of the dead animal. His first thought was that it was a ewe that had
wandered in here, got caught up in the briars and died. But the fleece was not
woolly enough, the patchy white hairs coarse and strong. A broken neck had
twisted the head round at an unnatural angle so that the empty eye sockets
watched him. Skeletal, just the hide remaining, the scavengers had done their
task well.
Those magpies were still telling the crow all about it, how they had feasted
from first light to dusk, and then the foxes had come and taken over; rats,
too. Now the meat was all gone.
Long curved horns. Jon tried to tell himself that it was a ram, lied to try
and avoid accepting the fact that what was left of the carcass was
indisputably goat. Billy goat. Gilbert.'
He wished again that he'd brought the shotgun. Damn it, he's dead, he can't
hurt you now. No, but whatever killed him might still be around, lurking in
the undergrowth, creeping up on you . . .
He glanced back to where he had left the chainsaw, began edging towards it. A
hellish weapon in the right hands. Pull yourself together, Gilbert was
probably killed soon after we last saw him, jumped by that dog of Gwyther's in
the same way that it killed the calf. It ran before and it'll run again, like
a desert jackal. It won't attack a human.
All the same he fetched the saw, kicked it into life and began cutting up a
thick trunk, a deafening whine that showered sawdust everywhere. Chainsaws
were noisy things, they let all and sundry know exactly where you were . . .
and you wouldn't hear if anything crept up on you.
Nervous, working fast, wanting to get the job over and done with. But you're
coming back for another load. And a third.
Within an hour the trailer was full of neatly sawn cylindrical birch trunk. He
climbed back up to the wheel, started on the bumpy journey back home.
If only Jackie had been there awaiting him.
He was starting to get depressed, a gradual erosion of his positive thinking.
That stemmed from spending too much time alone. Maybe Sylvia was right, they
had to go and find other survivors, //there were any others. There had to be.
He backed into the yard, tipped the trailer, watched the logs showering out,
bumping into a sprawling heap, one or two bowling away as though they sought
to escape the splitting axe and the Rayburn. Now it was time to go back to the
wood again and . . .
'Jon!' Sylvia appeared in the doorway and his first glance told him that
something was wrong. Her features were whiter than usual and she glanced
continually about her, 'Jon, there's been somebody here!'
'What! Who?' His mouth went dry and the sweat inside his T-shirt was suddenly
cold. 'What on earth are you talking about?'
'There was somebody here about a quarter of an hour ago.'
'Yes, but who? A man? A woman?'
'I ... I didn't see them.'
He closed his eyes momentarily, almost yelled 'Then how the fuck did you know
they were here?' Instead he spoke calmly, knew he had to reassure her. 'How do
you know then?'
'I heard them. They went in the shed over there, rummaged around, then came
out again and left the door swinging open, just like it is now.'
He turned, saw that she spoke the truth. He knew the door had been closed when
he left because he had fetched the chainsaw out of there before breakfast and
had replaced the stout gate-hook in the 'eye'. It fitted tight, too tight, so
that more often than not you had to jerk it free to open the door. It was
beyond anything other than a human being to open it.
The shed was not in full view of the cottage windows, a bare stone wall facing
in this direction. Without going outside Sylvia would not have been able to
see whoever had been in the shed and . . .
'Christ!' He saw the debris on the floor, the spilled contents of his
workbench, boxes of screws, nuts, nails scattered over the whole floor so that
they overflowed out into the yard. 'Some bugger's been stealing my tools.'
Jon Quinn had a tidy mind, Jackie used to call him obsessional. If you put
everything back where you got it from as soon as you've finished with it,
you'll know where to find it next time, he used to tell her. Consequently,
within a couple of minutes he knew which of his tools were gone, a process of
elimination from those still hanging from the nails above the bench. Two
screwdrivers, a hammer, a hacksaw, a chisel. . . The Black and Decker toolset
Jackie had given him for Christmas was still there, so was his spare chainsaw.
It didn't add up. Or did it?
'A thief,' Sylvia's tone was low and frightened.
'It looks that way,' he muttered. And everything they've stolen is something
that could be used as a weapon. In addition to that it means that they've now
found us, they know exactly where we're holed up.'
'I heard somebody in the shed so I locked the door.' She clung on to his arm.
'I didn't dare go out to look.'
'Just as well,' he answered. Because if you had you'd probably be dead now
like Gilbert in the wood. 'We've got to keep a watchful eye out,' Trite, an
understatement. If you're not on the alert the whole time you're likely to end
up dead, just like Gwyther would have killed me.
He kicked the nails and screws back inside, closed the door and flipped the
hook back into place. 'I'm not going to bother getting any more wood today,
I've got a pretty good load.'
'Shall we go into the village this afternoon then?' 'I'm just too bloody
knackered.' He squeezed her hand, wondered if he'd have to come up with an
additional excuse but she did not press the point. Possibly she was not as
anxious to make contact with others now that there had been a prowler in the
yard. 'Let's have something to eat and then I'll try and think of a way of
catching those goats and bringing them down here to the goat-house.'
'I wonder who it was,' she said as they went inside. 'Gwyther?'
Christ no, but maybe it's a good job you didn't set eyes on him if it was
anybody like old Bill. 'It could have been just anybody,' he replied casually.
'Like I said before, there are bound to be bands of vagrants roaming the
countryside after a holocaust of this nature and well do well to keep out of
their way, not advertise our presence.'
But he knew Sylvia wouldn't be satisfied until they had been to the village.
Sooner or later she was going to have to witness for herself what the terrible
micro-organisms had done to humanity, see these throwbacks with her own eyes.
Rounding up the nanny goats was a comparatively simple operation, an idea that
Jon Quinn had hit upon whilst they ate a salad lunch. For once Sylvia did not
complain about a plateful of sprouted seed salad and some hard goat cheese. A
cheese that Jackie had made; on occasions Jon had difficulty in swallowing.
*I want you to help me this afternoon,' he said, putting his plate in the
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