Chapter 3

One night, in the middle of the night, there was a desperate sounding knocking on our hut door. I was at the door before Will was out of his bag. ‘Don’t open it, Pete. Not until you’ve found out who it is.’

But I already had, and it was Persie and Merly, in a terrible state.

‘You’ve got to help us, Pete. I’ve killed him.’

‘Who have you killed?’

‘One of the soldiers. He broke into our hut, and was trying to rape Merly. I got on his back, got my arm round his neck, and crushed his windpipe in the crook of my elbow. I didn’t let go until he was dead.’

‘Where’s Birgitte?’

‘Huddled up with the children. She says she’ll just stay where she is as long as she can, and not alert the other soldiers until she really has to. She says she can explain what happened, and isn’t worried that they’ll blame her.’

‘They won’t like it that she didn’t tell them straight away.’

‘No, but she says she can pretend to be in shock. Really, I don’t think she’s much affected at all. I think she’s been half expecting something like this to happen sooner or later. We all have.’

The only possible escape at short notice was Will’s method. Persie and Merly were very keen that Will and I came with them, and I immediately agreed. Will dithered a bit and finally decided to stay behind. ‘When they find you’ve gone, they’ll wonder why I didn’t tell them, too. But I can just say that Persie came asking for you and that it never occurred to me that there was anything much amiss.’

We didn’t have any plastic sacks, but we managed to throw a bundle of all our clothes and towels over the fence a little way up the hill from the boggy patch. Getting under the fence was very unpleasant, but as Will had thought, doable. It’s amazing what you can do when the occasion demands.

Merly spotted the trip wires – there were two, deep amongst the weeds, running more or less parallel with the fence, just a few feet away from it – and we stepped over them without difficulty. Lucky our bundle of clothes didn’t land on them!

We kept our eyes peeled for more. It wasn’t easy in the moonlight, but we were fairly confident that we hadn’t trodden on any by the time we reached the edge of the woods. It was too dark in the woods to look, but we didn’t think there was any real risk of there being any there anyway.

We dried off and got dressed amongst the trees, well back from the edge of the wood. We couldn’t see in the darkness whether we were leaving an easily followed trail, but assumed that we were.

Well. We’ve committed ourselves now. The first thing we want to do is put a good distance between us and the camp, and if possible find a motor vehicle. Thank goodness Persie can drive! Then it’ll mainly be a matter of finding things to eat. Year after year after year. And hoping we’re right about contamination.

Should we be heading in any particular direction? We don’t even know where we are.

I knew we were all thinking the same thing. It was hard going in the woods, but the only way out of them that we knew was towards the camp, so we just kept on up the hill, hoping to come out of the woods at some point.

The slope got steeper, and soon there were boulders amongst the trees. The trees were smaller and less densely packed, and more light filtered down through them.

Thank goodness for Sweden’s short summer nights. It’s still long before people will be stirring in camp, and it’s getting light already. It’s a pity it’s past the height of summer, though.

We decided to skirt the hill to the right, rather than just continue upwards. As far as we could make out, that would take us further away from the camp than skirting it to the left, and away from the camp’s approach road. The hillside curved until we were heading more or less north again, which suited us well for the moment.

We heard the waterfalls before we reached them. To continue northwards, we had to get across the cataract somehow, but it was steep, slippery rocks everywhere. Upwards to the left looked pretty much impossible, so we struck downhill back into the denser woods, always watching for a place where we could cross the stream, but without finding anywhere. Eventually we came out of the woods onto rough pasture, much the same as we’d crossed between the camp and the woods.

It’s a pretty damn obvious place for us to end up for anyone who knows the geography. Hopefully they’re not looking for us yet, or if they are, they don’t know their way about.

The stream was easy to cross just below the edge of the woods. We barely even had to get our feet wet. We considered heading back up the slope in the woods, but decided we’d make better time on the grass and that that was worth more than staying under cover.

There was still no sign of anyone following us when we reached a farmstead about an hour later. It was still quite early in the morning, and we hoped that neither Birgitte nor Will had found it necessary to say anything to anyone yet.

‘I wonder if there’s a car here? If there is and I can start it, I think we’re far enough away from the camp that they won’t hear anything. At least the road heads reassuringly north!’

There was a car. Persie was confident of hot wiring it, but needed tools to break the steering lock. ‘I doubt we’ll find the right torx driver to dismantle it, but a drill down the keyhole would do fine. Or I could probably do it with a hammer and chisel.’

We went in search. It felt very odd kicking the door in, but it was the obvious thing to do.

We came across one canine and two human corpses, but didn’t investigate closely. Merly found a bunch of keys, which proved to be the right ones for the car. The battery was flat, but the car was on a slope. Persie rolled it a little way and bump started it at the first attempt. We hadn’t even needed to push it. We were motorized. According to the fuel gauge, the tank was almost full.

‘I wonder whether the battery will hold its charge, or whether you’ll have to bump start it every time we stop?’

‘I’ll park on a hill if I can, until I’m confident of it.’

We decided not to search the farm for anything else useful. ‘Better to put more distance between us and the camp first. There’ll be plenty more places to raid.’

She’s very blasé about it. She seems to have almost forgotten the events of the last few hours – or blocked them out, maybe. She was pretty wound up when she arrived at our hut, but she seems to be on an amazingly even keel now. Long may it last.

We drove past two farms, without stopping, before we came to a junction. There was no signpost, but it seemed clear which was the more major road, and it was still heading away from the camp, a little west of north. Not very much further on we reached a proper major road. Persie turned right, which seeming to be the direction away from the camp.

‘I’m a bit more worried now. We don’t know whether this might be a road to a town where the soldiers go to raid. I wouldn’t want them to see a moving vehicle.’

‘We’ll keep our eyes skinned, watching the road behind, and you just keep going as fast as you dare. If we see a coach following us, we’ll yell and you can get up a side road as quick as you can, and out of sight of the road. They’re not usually on the road this early, though, so unless they’ve started looking for us, I think we’ll get beyond the distance they usually go before they set off at all. And if they are looking for us, surely they won’t think we’re motorized.’

‘I hope you’re right. I think you probably are, but the situation makes me nervous.’

Me too, and I’m sure that goes for Merly as well. But all things considered, we’re not doing badly. I wish I’d taken a bit of notice of the sign at that junction. It probably told us the distance to towns in each direction. I’ll see if I can see anything next time we pass a side road.

But Persie was driving as fast as she dared, and the signs flashed past much too fast for me to read. I couldn’t even catch the distances.

‘It’s a strange feeling, being absolutely confident there’s nothing coming the other way. I can use the whole road, which means I can take bends quite a lot faster. I don’t think one of those coaches could keep up with us anyway.’

‘They do have the advantage of height. They can often see over hedges and walls where we couldn’t, so they often know what the road does further round the bend than you do.’

‘Do you drive, too, Merly?’

‘Not really, I never had a chance to learn back at home in Hong Kong. Since I came here, Birgitte’s given me a couple of lessons so far, that’s all. But I’ve heard her husband talking about it. He’s a truck driver. Or was, most likely.’

‘One other thing bothers me. We don’t know how many other camps like ours there might be, and whether they’re in contact with each other. We might meet raiding parties from other camps, and they’d be just as dangerous as raiding parties from our own camp.’

‘True. There’s even an outside chance of meeting one of them on a blind bend.’

‘I’m not slowing down. Not yet, anyway. For one thing, I doubt any raiding parties from any camp’ll be on the road yet, and for another, the other side of them being able to see the road further round the bend than we can is that we can see them coming, too.’

‘I think the risk of us meeting any raiding parties must be pretty small. They couldn’t do it at all if there were any significant numbers of survivors from private shelters. My guess is that private shelters must have been totally ineffective against whatever was used. That probably means that a lot of public shelters were fairly useless, too. The people running our camp must know that. Or at any rate, they’re obviously working on that assumption.’

‘It always seemed to me that most of the shelters were just profiteering scams.’

‘There’s a rabbit!’

‘Where?’

‘Gone. You missed it.’

‘Alive? Makes me think. I don’t think I’ve seen any animal life since we left the camp.’

‘There were a lot of flies in the place we got the car.’

‘Oh, yes. But have you seen any birds? I haven’t. Any animals apart from insects? But yes, that rabbit was alive. They don’t run as well as that when they’re dead.’

‘So whatever it was killed nearly everything, but left at least one rabbit. Maybe there’ll be a few people around somewhere.’

Farms, villages. The road went on. ‘We’re obviously beyond the range of our camp’s raiding parties by now. They drive to wherever they’re going, load up, and are back again in not much longer than this. I vote we try and find something to eat.’

‘I expect any farm will do. They’ll have some tins in a cupboard. And a tin opener. And some cutlery. Clean water might be a problem.’

‘I’d quite like to get off the direct road from the area our camp’s in first. You never know, they might send out a search party at least on the main roads.’

‘Fair enough. You’re in the driving seat.’ Literally.

We reached an even bigger road – signed Karlstad in one direction and Oslo in the other.

‘Let’s go to Oslo!’

‘I wonder what the border formalities will be like!’

Laughter. But seriously, it’s not completely impossible that there could be formalities at the border. Pretty unlikely though.

There weren’t. There wasn’t a soul in sight, any more than there had been anywhere else.

‘How’s the fuel doing?’

‘Still half a tank, if the gauge is to be believed. No reason to doubt it, it’s been going down gradually the way I’d expect. I suppose we ought to think about stopping somewhere though. I’ll head off the main road fairly soon.’

Persie chose a side road with a sign showing a couple of places at distances of twelve and thirty kilometres. ‘At least we know it’s not just a short dead-end.’

We stopped at a farm a few miles up the road, and went in. The door wasn’t locked. There was a corpse just inside, in an advanced state of decay. We sidled carefully past it. We’re going to have to get used to this.

In the larder, there was a good range of tins, cheese, cured meat, dried fish, a couple of unopened bags of flour, and two more of sugar. We didn’t open the freezer, knowing there’d be nothing worth having in there. ‘It’d stink to high heaven.’

We ate some cheese and meat, and loaded the rest into the car. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to drink.

Merly tried the tap – and it worked. ‘I expect it’s a spring off the hill. It’ll be as safe as anything else we can find to eat or drink. I’m thirsty.’

She found a cup, rinsed it out, and drank. Persie and I did likewise.

‘I hope there’s no dead sheep in the spring.’

‘Don’t. There’s dead sheep everywhere.’

‘I had noticed.’

‘Whatever they died of is unlikely to be infectious – now, even if it was before. But what else has been breeding in the dead bodies, who knows?’

‘That’s the chance we’re taking. We knew that all along. What’s the alternative?’

‘Well, exactly.’ Persie looked very serious again. She’s remembering.

‘Actually, surely it’s unlikely anything particularly pathogenic is breeding in the dead bodies. Surely dead bodies are cold, breeding grounds for cold-adapted organisms, not organisms that would thrive in a warm body?’

‘That’s not a theory I’d like to rely on. And they could certainly be breeding grounds for things that produce deadly toxins, like botulism. I wouldn’t even want to eat those dead sheep cooked.’

‘Live rabbit wouldn’t be a bad idea though, if we can find a way to catch one.’

‘We’ve only seen one.’

‘I’m happy to stick with what we can find in people’s houses, if this house is anything to go by. But I’d like to find a few tools, and we need cutlery and stuff.’

We found a tin opener, knives, forks and spoons, plates, bowls and mugs, and loaded them into the car.

‘What are we going to do when we run out of fuel? There won’t be many petrol stations open. Do we just abandon this car and pick up another one?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. We do at least have the keys to this one. There’s no guarantee we’ll find the keys to another so easily. Has anyone seen any car keys here, for example? There’s a car outside.’

‘Actually, it’s a better car than we’ve got. It’s a lot bigger, and it’s four wheel drive. It’s a lot newer, too – more likely to be reliable. And it’s a diesel – not so good if the battery’s knackered, but otherwise better. We’ve got a much better chance of finding a gravity feed diesel tank at a farm, than getting hold of petrol in quantity. We’ve got plenty of time. Let’s find those keys.’

Persie found them. They were in a trouser pocket of the corpse.

‘Yuk. Not my favourite game. But worth it. I can wash my hands. And the keys.’ Which she did.

‘I still feel filthy. Horrible. Much worse than trying to drown in that bog.’

‘Definitely worth it.’

The Jeep started on the battery. It didn’t sound at first as though it was going to, but it did.

‘I’ll leave it running to charge the battery while we search the place for anything else useful.’

‘How much fuel has it got?’

‘Plenty for the moment, but I’d like to get more. I don’t want even to consider swapping this one.’

We found a good range of hand tools. There were electric tools, too, but without electricity what use were they? But we went back for them later after we found a generator, which started with the first pull on the cord once we’d discovered the priming button.

There was a tractor, but we didn’t want that.

‘Not just now, anyway. Maybe we will want one one day, who knows?’

‘Maybe. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble finding one anywhere, though, do you?’

The best find of all was a big tank of diesel, two big jerry cans, and funnels.

How full the big tank was we didn’t know, but there was more than enough to fill the Jeep’s tank and both jerry cans, and the straps for the cans were loose in the back of the Jeep.

‘At least we don’t have to have the jerry cans inside. They’d be horribly smelly.’

We found a pair of huge gas cylinders at the back of the house.

‘I bet the cooker in the kitchen runs off these. They’re not big enough for central heating. We can cook!’

‘There’s an oil tank for the central heating just behind the big barn. I saw it as we were arriving.’

‘I wonder whether we should stay here for a little while – tonight at least. I don’t see any special need to move on now, do you? There’ll be comfortable beds – even if we have to move corpses out of them and remake them with fresh linen. I’m sure there’ll be some of that around.’

‘You really fancy moving a corpse out of a bed and then sleeping in it?’

‘It might be the only way of getting a comfortable bed.’

‘I think I can stand uncomfortable beds for a few nights. We’ll find beds without corpses in them eventually.’

The cooker did work, and we had a good meal. We felt a bit silly fetching things back from the car.

‘I’m glad there were no corpses in the kitchen.’

‘Me too. But I think we’ll probably get used to just dragging them out of the way and getting on with life.’

‘We certainly can’t bury them all.’

There was a corpse in one of the beds, but there were three more bedrooms, and the beds in all of them seemed perfectly clean.

I had dreadful dreams, but I didn’t tell the others. I suspected that theirs were even worse, but they didn’t tell me about them.

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