He knew better than to sing or hum. If he summoned a tune it could easily turn into a tormenting earworm he couldn’t shake no matter how hard he tried. An endurance lesson learned during Basic. Pre-dawn reveille. Hauling himself across an assault course in cold morning light. High wall, water trench, belly-crawl under wire. The unmastered mind will break and fail long before physical collapse.
He wanted to pause and tighten the straps of his backpack but knew if he stopped for any reason, sat a while to sip from his canteen or relace his boots, he might be crippled by lactic acid. His limbs would seize, leaving him unable to walk another step.
He monitored the rotation of the constellations. Figured he’d been walking four, five hours. The wrecked B-52 lay far behind.
He strode the first mile fast as he could, in case Hancock put up a star shell and tried to chase him down. Didn’t know the guy well enough to predict how Hancock would react once he discovered he’d split. He might regard him as a mutineer and, in his fury, climb a high dune and lose a few shots from his Beretta. A mile would put him out of reach.
He tried hard not to think of the vast aridity around him. An implacably hostile landscape. Three-sixty desolation.
Absolute silence.
Absolute stillness.
A barren sea of silica.
The death-dry plains of an alien world.
Mixture of terror and exhilaration. Marooned, yet absolute master of his fate.
He looked up at the sky. Wheeling constellations. Scorpio, Cassiopeia, Draco.
He was heading north-east towards Dry Bone Canyon. He looked up, used the handle of the Big Dipper to confirm the position of the North Star. It would be visible most of the night, shifting position approximately fifteen degrees each hour. He would take precise compass readings every three hours.
He tried to imagine what lay over the horizon ahead of him. A way to fill monotonous hours.
The reconnaissance photograph showed SUVs and a couple of house trailers. Perhaps it marked the establishment of a permanent military site. An advance team staking out the ground-plan of a secure compound to be built far from urban pandemonium.
He pictured crew cabins, generators, sealed food, jerry cans of water.
He might find fresh underwear. He might find toiletries on a bathroom shelf, a chance to freshen up and shave, foam the dust from his hair, wipe the fried-onion stink from his armpits.
Most of all, he wanted to find a vehicle with a full tank of gas and keys in the ignition. Big, black government SUV with tinted windows. A sweet journey back to Liberty Bell: blast the air con, crank the music, relish soft leather seats.
He tried to recall a Discovery Channel doc he once saw about the Paris/Dakar. Bunch of rich guys bouncing dunes in a tricked out Mitsubishi Pajero. A half-remembered tip for driving through desert: bleed air from your tyres. Wider they spread, less likely the vehicle will bed down.
Absurd wish? A fuelled automobile waiting for him to climb inside and turn the key to IGN? What the hell. About time they caught a break.
He kept walking.
Easy to picture old-time settlers crossing the dunes, trying to make is west. Near-dead horses hauling covered wagons merciless miles. Gaunt, hollow-eyed men and women, reins in their hands, praying for the landscape to change, anxious for any hint of vegetation.
They might be beneath his feet right now. Consumed by the landscape. Submerged cartwheels and planks. Horse skulls and tackle. Coffee pots and griddles. Boots, bonnets and bone.
His canteen hung from a lanyard slung from his shoulder. He uncapped and took a single swig, rolled the water round his mouth, sluiced cheek-to-cheek, finally swallowed. He licked the neck of the canteen in case a droplet of moisture hung from the screw thread, then recapped.
Eyes fixed on the starlight horizon. Part of him prayed for daybreak and rest. But it would be tough to sleep during the day. Heat would put him in a delirium. Physical exhaustion replaced by mental torment.
He began to fear the wilderness went on for ever. Boundless dunes, like he was lost within some kind of simulation. A game environment. A world built from code. Each time he crested a ridge a new section of virtual terrain, a wire-frame scaffold overlaid with plates of sand texture, would snap into being. The landscape would curl on itself like a Möbius strip. Walk long enough and he’d find himself back at the plane, back where he began.
He shook his head, tried to arrest his free-spinning imagination and return to the present.
How long had he been walking? A long while. Didn’t necessarily mean he’d covered much ground. Wading through soft sand. Laboriously hauling himself to the top of each dune. His calves and ankles burned.
He reconsidered his decision not to stop for rest. He wanted to cover as much ground as possible before sunrise. But if he drove himself to walk ten hours straight he might collapse.
Ought to conserve some energy for the following night. And the night after.
Better stop a moment and eat.
He came to a halt and stretched. Didn’t want to sit down. If he sat down his legs might stiffen up, make it impossible to walk.
He tore open a protein bar.
The eastern sky had begun to lighten. He must have walked most of the night. Might be able to cover a couple more miles before sunrise. Then he would have to pitch camp, arrange a survival blanket as a parasol.
He finished the energy bar and pocketed the wrapper.
He blew to warm his fingers.
He allowed himself another sip of water.
He reslung the canteen over his shoulder, tried to ignore the slosh of liquid that signalled the declining water level within the canteen.
A glance back. A trail of footprints receded to the horizon.
He touched his toes, swung his arms, then resumed his journey. He strode double-pace to cover as much ground as he could before sun-up, mouthed ‘…one, two, three, one, two, three…’ to set a rhythm.
He crested a high dune, and found a limousine.
33
Frost stumbled through the tear in the cabin wall. Her flight suit snagged and tore.
She hurriedly shunted equipment trunks against the aperture, sealing it shut.
Frantic scramble up the ladder to the flight deck. She disregarded jarring pain from her injured leg.
She threw herself into the pilot seat and pulled down the blast curtains, blocking out a blood-red sunset.
Hancock climbed the ladder and switched on cabin lights.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
Frost ejected her pistol mag and thumbed bullets into her palm. Four rounds. She reloaded, chambered, sat clutching the gun.
‘Seriously. What’s the deal?’
Frost sat, panting hard.
Hancock crouched beside her. He clicked his fingers for attention.
‘Hey. Lieutenant. Look at me.’
She looked at him. She slowly got her breathing under control, regained her composure, ashamed of her panic.
‘We need light,’ said Frost. ‘Lots of light. We should dig trenches and fill them with fuel. Circle the plane with fire.’
‘Slow down. What the hell is going on? Are we under attack?’
‘The bastards are out there, circling the plane.’
‘You saw them?’
‘Fuckers are getting bold. It’s like they got a purpose, a schedule.’
‘What did they look like?’
‘Pinback, Guthrie, Early.’
‘You saw their faces?’
‘They’ve come for us.’
‘Slow down,’ said Hancock. ‘I’ve seen thousands of infected bastards. So have you. They’re dumb. They got the intelligence of an earthworm. They don’t stalk their prey.’