“Who do you reckon it is? RAF planes back from abroad or Americans?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Annie sighed. “They’ll surely send aid and engineers to rebuild and…” she trailed off.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. There’s no quick fix, is there? It’s likely to take years. Just think of all the circuits and wiring that’ll need to be replaced. Even if they send a fleet of ships, it’ll still take years to get Britain running again.”
“Assuming it’s Americans.”
“What does that mean?”
“It could be anyone. It could even be whoever attacked us coming back to view their handiwork.”
Clive glanced at his wife. She hadn’t said anything, but her hands were gripping the handlebars so tightly that her knuckles were turning blue. “Let’s stay positive, eh?”
“I don’t see how,” Terry said. “If those are enemy jets there’s a good chance they have bombs on board. Maybe they’ve come to finish us off.”
Olivia let out a startled cry and her bike wobbled. Clive threw a hand out to grab her handlebars. “Steady there. It’s okay, love.”
He was alarmed. The pill should have calmed her. Or had it? Was she so terrified now that the drugs could only do so much?
“It’s not! I don’t want to get blown to pieces, Clive! I wish we’d stayed in the flat now.”
“Terry,” he hissed, trying to keep his temper under control. It wasn’t fair to expect them to walk on eggshells for his wife’s sake, but staying calm was easier said than done. “It doesn’t do any of us any good to talk that way. Let’s just stay positive and keep moving. I wish we’d never stopped at that truck. We’d just eaten.”
“We had, but we got the juices there,” Annie said, sounding strangely flat. “So we won’t need to stop again for a while.”
He started to explain how they would need to stop; that he’d need to stock up on pills before nightfall if possible, but he stopped. Later. He’d do it later. Maybe they’d find a small town with a place to bed down for the night. If they went fast then they’d be well into the countryside by nightfall, where it was safer and less populated.
Yes, he thought. There’s no need to panic.
Yet.
No-one spoke again after that. They all focused on the road ahead. There were fewer distractions now and no pedestrians to be seen.
Clive was happy with that. Olivia certainly seemed calmer now she was concentrating on cycling rather than thinking about all the things that could go wrong for them.
He couldn’t blame Terry. He was frightened. They were all frightened. And it was easy for them to forget about Olivia’s condition when she appeared calm on the surface. He understood that.
He’d been wondering about the fighter jets. They’d come from the south. He hadn’t said anything, but he was sure now that they weren’t enemies, or if they were, they were there for a different reason than bombing. Because wouldn’t they have struck London if that was their intention?
And why would they bother? He gritted his teeth. Hadn’t they already devastated the place? What was the need to strike again when all they had to do was sit back and wait for the county to implode?
Then again, that didn’t automatically make them friendly.
He didn’t know what to think.
All he could do was keep on pedalling.
A few times he saw signs for towns off the motorway, but none of the names were familiar and the blasted things never said how far away those places were. He was desperate enough to consider just choosing one at random and going there, but he didn’t want to take them miles off course when their morale was already so low. And going alone wasn’t an option—who knew what sort of state Olivia would get herself in if Terry chose to share his theories when Clive wasn’t there?
No, they had no choice but to go on.
That was until he saw a sign with a familiar name. He’d done a course there years ago. Back then it had been a town in its own right. Now London had almost expanded to absorb it.
He sped up and passed the others, wanting to get a good look at the area beyond the off-ramp before he committed to it. Sadly it was no help. He could see a scrapyard and some other dilapidated industrial buildings just beyond the exit, but everything else was blocked by the hills.
“Bugger.”
“What is it?”
He spun around. He hadn’t expected them to catch up to him so quickly. “Nothing,” he muttered. He sighed. “I recognised one of the towns on the sign there. I thought it might be a good place to stop. But I can’t see beyond those hills.”
Annie frowned and he knew what she was going to say before she even said it. “But why? We’ve already stopped. We agreed the juices would keep us going without us needing to stop for water.”
Clive sighed. “I’m worried about Olivia. I’d like to stock up on medicine like we talked about.”
“Of course. Sorry. With everything that’s been…” she frowned. “Did you hear that?”
Clive had, and his heart was hammering. In the first second or two, he’d thought it was the fighter jets again. But it wasn’t. “That’s a car.”
“Yeah. It must be an older model. We knew about this.”
They did, but that made it no less startling to hear. He looked around, trying to see it. It was a clear day, but he couldn’t see the sun glinting off a windscreen. He wished they were up in those hills nearby, though he didn’t fancy the prospect of having to cycle over them.
“What is it? Can you see it?”
He shook his head.
“You seemed worried.”
He was about to disagree when he realised that she was right. He was worried. He closed his eyes. It was a big beast of an engine.
Terry reached them then, panting and spluttering. He’d stood up to work the pedals faster. Olivia must have sensed his panic because she too was moving faster than she had all day, her face screwed up in concentration.
“Is that a car?”
Clive nodded.
“What are the chances they’ll stop and help us?”
“Help us do what? There are four of us and we’ve got bikes.”
“Well,” Terry said. “Maybe we could try and take it from them. We do have guns.”
Clive shook his head. “We’re not crooks. But they might be. Let’s get out of sight until they pass. There’s an industrial estate down there.”
“How can you possibly tell they’re crooks?”
Clive turned and stared at her. “Listen to the way they’re gunning the engine. I may be wrong, but I’d prefer not to take the chance.”
“What, are you telling me you wouldn’t rather have a car?”
“We have no idea what we’re dealing with, Terry,” he said, wishing he could be blunt. It was risky enough being out on bicycles in the present climate. The only people who’d take the even greater risk of going out in a car were those who knew no better—and they’d soon be taken advantage of—or those who knew the dangers and didn’t care.
Clive didn’t want to meet the latter; not with his wife present.
“Let’s go,” he murmured. “They’re getting closer. If you want to take the risk, you can. Olivia and I are going to find somewhere sheltered to eat lunch.”
He’d intended to find the most deserted looking warehouse he could, but Clive soon realised there was no time to properly scope the place out. The roar of the engine was getting louder.
“That junkyard,” he hissed. “Go as fast as you can.”
“The scrapyard?” Terry muttered. “How do you know that’s not where they’re going?”