“Leg it, lads,” Banks shouted. “To the cliff, before they get round to electing a new leader.”
Davies was slow to push off on his bad foot and the others were already three paces ahead before he even got going but that proved to be a blessing in disguise for the three of them provided an arrowhead wedge with the captain in front and Wiggo and Wilkins on either side. Davies was able to slot into the space behind them and gain a degree of protection while they dodged fighting beetles, snapping pincers and pools of tarry goop. So far none of them had needed to use their weapons; the beetles were more concerned with fighting each other. As if to prove the point, two of the beasts took down a large one only five yards to the squad’s left as they ran past. That was a cue for a swarm to pour over the dead one. It was already in pieces before Davies passed it.
Davies tried to concentrate on the captain’s back, one step at a time, trying to ignore the pain. He felt wetness and heat at his ankle again, more blood flowing into his boot. The flight to get off the valley floor turned into a prolonged feat of endurance as white flaring agony shot up his leg and his limp got ever more pronounced.
They were halfway to the cliff path before they had to fire their first shots; one of the larger beetles took an interest in them and headed in from their right flank. Davies took out its front legs. Wiggo heard the shots, turned and fired, blowing its head apart and within seconds the spot where it fell was a mound of swarming, snapping, feeding.
We’re going to make it.
The captain reached the cliff path first and headed down, the others at his back. Davies chanced one last look back at the carnage that was still playing out before the great wall. The beetles’ fighting was now concentrated around a series of seething mounds of frenzied feeding. Over at the main gate was another, even larger mound where the beetle king was being scavenged for parts. A cacophony of drones and whistles echoed around the canyon walls but almost as soon as Davies began on the downward trail the noise got softer, less insistent and soon it was drowned out by the pounding of blood in his ears. His senses narrowed, his sight concentrating on where he put his feet, everything else subsumed by the agony that shot through his body with every step. His mind played tricks on him; one minute he was on a high trail on a mountainside looking over desert sands, the next he was fleeing down a graffiti laden stairwell in a Glasgow tower block, screaming tormentors at his heels.
“Give us a smile, blackie, so we can see where you are.”
He realised he had a rifle in his hands at the same instant as he heard heavy footfalls only a pace or two behind him. He screamed, years of pent-up fury unleashed as he swivelled on his bad foot, letting the pain guide him rather than take him.
“Come and get me if you think you’ve got the balls for it.”
He didn’t need to aim; the dark shape loomed up right there at the end of his barrel. He fired at it until it went away. The recoil took his balance, his pack decided its weight was better off going backwards and Davies tumbled down the rocky path, arse over tit. His bad ankle hit a jutting rock, white pain became cold dark and he fell gratefully into it.
He came out of it lying on his back looking up at a carpet of stars. A dark shape loomed at his left and he reached for a weapon, any weapon but stopped when he heard Wiggo’s laugh.
“Look who’s in the land of the living. Welcome back, lad.”
Davies tried to sit up. Pain shot through him at both ends, white hot in his ankle, red hot and sticky at the back of his head when he felt there.
“You took a wee bump. Well, a big bump really. But no worries; we’re back at yon oasis and we’re safe and away. We lugged you here like a sack of coal. The beasties gave up the chase after you took out yon last one on the path and we’ve even got you a ride the rest of the way back.”
“I took out one on the path? I thought that was just a dream.”
“Well if this is one of your dreams, it’s got me in it, you fucking pervert.”
Off to his left, a camel, the same one as they’d met on the way in, brayed in answering laughter.
-Banks-
The end of the story came a week later. Banks joined the rest of the squad in the mess in Lossiemouth. Wiggo and Wilkins stood, Davies didn’t; the private had his left leg in a cast up to his knee and had it resting straight out on a spare chair.
After standing for a round of beers, Banks produced some notes from his pocket.
“Two things to tell you that I learned from the colonel in my debrief.
“Firstly, there’s been a wee volcano eruption in a remote part of Libya. A research team from Edinburgh was unfortunately caught up in it and there were no survivors. Their families have been notified. Off the record, the Libyan Air Force did a bit of target practice at our suggestion. Yon crater, city, and everything around it, is now a pile of rubble.
“Secondly, and more happily, they’ve traced the mannie who wrote the journal back then. He was never done for shooting his C.O., and I might have left that bit out of my report to the colonel. He stayed in service for years after walking out of the desert, won a wheen of medals, retired to a wee house in the Highlands and died in his bed with his family around him at the age of ninety. We would all do well to be so lucky.”
Banks raised his glass.
“To squads, old and new.”
They drank some beer.
Then they drank some more.
Read on for a free sample of Age of Monsters
Everybody remembered where they were when the world ended.
When you met them, that was always the first thing people told you – where they were – what they were doing. What it was like.
Jonah certainly remembered where he had been – out fishing.
He’d almost missed it.
He had just come in from a day on the river, smelly and wet, stopping by the old general store, with nothing more on his mind than frying up his catch, and maybe stocking up a few supplies for the rustic mountain cabin he kept just north of town. He lived nestled high up in Oregon’s Siskiyou Forest, and the market was the last post before open wilderness.
The end of the world had been on TV.
Jonah had been idly checking out the woman standing in-line in front of him – noticeably attractive, despite the deliberately frumpy flannel, heavy jacket, and worker’s boots. Her hands were in her pockets, hiding her ring-finger, but the obvious effort to cover it all up suggested a married woman. Jonah was guessing a soldier’s wife – a military bride accustomed to being on her own while her husband was deployed. You could tell she was used to fending off approving stares – although the one sideways glance she had spared to Jonah, with a brief, up-and-down appraisal, had also added the unconditional qualifier ‘and out of your league’.