Without allowing herself to think about it — without even looking out for crocs — Emma pushed away the last branches, the last of the raft, and let herself and Sally slide into the water. Sally lay face-down in the water, passive, but Emma managed to roll her onto her back. The makeshift sling was filthy, stained by blood and the muddy river water. Emma got the inert woman’s head against her belly, and cupped her fingers under Sally’s chin. Then, working with her feet and her one free arm, she began to swim backwards, towing Sally’s floating form.
She was soon exhausted. Her soaked clothes were heavy and clinging, and her boots made her feet feel as if they were encased in concrete. It seemed an age before her kicking feet began to sink into a steeply rising river bottom. She stood up, gasping.
Sally was still floating, so Emma grabbed a handful of cloth at her shoulder and, still supporting her head, began to drag her out of the water. Nobody came to her assistance — nobody but Maxie, and he was more hindrance than help.
At last she got Sally out of the river, far enough that her feet were free of the lapping, muddy brown water, and she fell on her back with exhaustion.
On this side of the river, there was less evidence of the ash falls that had plagued the Runners for days. But beyond the narrow, pebble-strewn beach, the shore was heavily wooded. The Runners huddled together in suspicious silence, peering at the dense green banks above them.
Night was coming.
With barely a word exchanged, some of the Runners crept cautiously into the woods. Others walked down the beach, tentatively exploring, and Fire and a couple of the women began to drag branches from the edge of the forest, building a fire. Fire cast shy glances at Emma; evidently he remembered, in some dim way, how she had managed to start a fire even when he had lost his treasured handful of embers, probably a key moment in his tortured young life.
First things first, she thought.
She pulled Sally further up the beach. She turned Sally over once more to the recovery position, unzipped Sally’s trousers and with some difficulty wrestled them off her, followed by her panties. The clothes were filthy, of course, from faeces and river mud, and they clung to her flesh; but Emma was reluctant to use her knife — this was Sally’s only set of clothing in the whole world, after all. When she had the pants off she used handfuls of leaves to clean Sally up as best she could, and covered her with her own T-shirt, briskly stripped off.
Then, leaving Maxie with his mother, she walked briskly down the beach. After fifty paces she came to a small stream, decanting from some source in the forest. It had cut itself a shallow, braided valley. Two of the children were playing here, splashing and wrestling. Emma walked a little way upstream of them and began to rinse out Sally’s trousers and underwear in the shallow, sluggish water. When she was done she cleaned off her arms and hands, splashed cold water over her face, and took a deep drink. Then she dug her plastic bag out of her pocket — one of the few artefacts she had yet to lose — and dipped it to the stream to fill it with water.
More barely remembered medical lore came back to her. Diarrhoea and vomiting led to dehydration, which you ought to treat with sugar and salt, a teaspoon of each to a litre of water, if she remembered right. Fine, save that she had no sugar or salt, and no teaspoon for that matter…
She glanced up the beach.
Stone was squatting beside Sally. He had removed the T-shirt from her lower body, and was running his hands up her thigh. Maxie had cowered back to the edge of the woods, watching the huge man grope his mother.
Emma put down the water, straightened up, and began to walk back to Sally. She felt around her neck for her Swiss Army knife. She got to within a foot of Stone without him noticing she was there.
So where are you going to stick your blade, Emma? In his cheek, his rock-hard penis, his back? What makes you think this tiny little bee-sting blade will do more than goad him anyhow? He’ll kill you, then do what he wants with Sally anyhow.
She pulled out the foldaway lens and lifted it up. She angled it so she caught the sun, and focused a bright spot on the back of Stone’s broad neck. He howled, slapping his neck, and jumped up, whirling, his penis flopping. As calmly as she could she tilted back the lens so the spot of light shone in his eyes. He raised his hands, dazzled. She said, “Keep away from her. Stone, you asshole, or I will bring down the sun on you. Stone sun Stone sun! Understand?”
He growled, but still the light shone in his eyes. He stumbled away, his penis wilting.
Trembling, trying to give an impression of command, Emma walked back along the beach, picked up her bag of water, and hurried back to Sally.
Sally still lay on her side, her head resting on her good arm, eyes closed, mouth open. There was a bubble of saliva at her mouth. That bubble of saliva popped, abruptly.
“Oh shit,” Emma said. She grabbed Sally and pushed her on her back. Sally sighed once, and then was still. Emma pinched Sally’s cheeks until her lips parted. The skin was cool and waxy. She dug her fingers in Sally’s mouth, and scooped out gobbets of vomit and flung it on the sand. Then she placed one hand under Sally’s chin and tilted her head back. She could hear no breath, not a whisper.
She ran her hands over Sally’s torso, seeking the end of the breastbone. Then she pulled her hands to the middle of her chest, placed the heel of her hand a little higher, and began to press down. “One-and-two-and…”
A child leapt out of the woods, a lithe hairy child, its face twisted into a snarl. Maxie scrambled away, screaming. Emma shrank back from Sally, gasping with terror.
…No, not a child. It was an ape, an adult — a female, in fact, with two small empty dugs, a skinny, naked body covered in spiky black-brown hair. She was maybe three feet tall. She had the face of a chimp, with lowering eyes gazing out of ridged sockets, and a protruding mouth with thick wrinkled lips covering angular teeth. Emma could have cupped her brain pan in one hand. But she walked and ran upright, human-style, like a clumsy mannequin — her feet were more human than not — and in one curved, bony hand, dangling below her knees, she clutched what looked like a shaped pebble.
She was a caricature, a shrunken, shrivelled, spellbound mix of ape and human, a dwarfish sprite: an Elf, just as the Runners called her kind. This ape-woman ran up to Emma and capered before her.
Emma picked up a handful of sand and hurled it in the Elf’s face.
The Elf howled and staggered back, rubbing her eyes.
Fire came running out of the forest’s shade. With a single, almost graceful swipe, he slammed a rock against the side of the Elf’s head.
She fell sprawled on the beach, unconscious or dying, half her face crushed.
Now there was screaming and yelling. All along the beach. Elf-folk were boiling out of the forest. They ran along the shore, rocks and sticks in their hands.
But the Runners fought back hard. Mothers grabbed their children and ran into the sea, where the Elf-folk seemed reluctant to follow. Men and women threw rocks at the scampering Elf-folk, and swung at them with their fists and feet.
But there were many, many of the Elf-folk, and they fought with a mindless intensity that seemed to overwhelm even the Runners.
Emma, trying to ignore this hideous drama, threw herself back at Sally.
After fifteen compressions Emma pinched Sally’s nose, clamped her mouth on Sally’s, and breathed hard and deep. She tasted vomit and blood. She pulled her head away, let Sally’s chest deflate, and tried again. After two breaths she searched again for a pulse, found none, and slammed the heel of her hand into Sally’s chest once more.
The conflict went on, crude, animal-like.