In the morning, Clara rounded up the survivors, crafting two stretchers from old riot shields, and set off. Those few who had protested her plan, lingered with the bus outside the vault’s entrance. However, before an hour had gone by, she spotted them jogging to catch up, afraid of being left behind. Clara checked her terminal once more for the best path towards Milltown only to realise the distress signal she had activated inside the vault’s exit was still transmitting. Ending it, she mapped out a route, and marched on, leading the thirty-nine total survivors around one bend in the road at a time.
By early afternoon, the road dipped between two cliffs and widened at a gravel verge, staring up at a wide valley. Snow capped mountains rose around them. Shrubbs climbed the hill to their right, and a small stream trickled over stones, pooling in the road before cascading over the cliff’s edge to their left Clara filled her bottle as the others fell upon the stream, drinking firstly. The climb had been steep, and the roads were logged with traffic. Their pace was further slowed by the injured. Despite that Clara was the vault dweller’s guide, she didn’t feel like their friend. They spoke in hushed voices while she was near, casting wary eyes. For now, they had no other option than to trust her judgement. The little girl with ginger hair, at least, never left her side.
Sitting on the roadside, Clara inspected her wounds. The bleeding had stopped, but the pain was ever present. Still, she found strength from somewhere–her will, or perhaps that of her Augmentation. Whatever the source, she managed to rise in search of supplies. Venturing down the road while the others rested, she spotted a lodge built into the cliff’s face. An old hotel maybe. Clara returned to the vault dwellers and announced, “Who can walk? There’s a building we can scavenge for supplies. Food, maybe medicine.”
A boy raised his hand and emerged from the crowd. He looked about in his early teens. None of the adults tried to stop him as he ventured forward. Presumably, his family were still down in the vault.
“Perfect,” Clara smiled. “Are you coming too?” she asked the girl at her hip. The kid nodded eagerly. Taking both kids by their shoulders, Clara pulled them in close and bent over conspiratorially. “We’re going to go on a super important mission. Are you sure you have the strength?”
The girl nodded, and the boy whispered “Yes.”
“Right, follow me. We’re going scavenging for food.”
“What should I do?” Gabriel asked, wandering over. He rested his thin ornament sword over the back of his neck as though posing for a regal painting.
“Follow us. Keep a lookout.”
Clara left Andy with the survivors on the roadside and and walked amongst the derelict highway, peering through windows and opening up boots and lifted up blankets, searching for supplies. The little girl accompanying Clara grabbed her hand and held it tight. Clara squeezed it gently. “What’s your name?”
The girl stared up at her through full-moon eyes, twinkling in the light of day. A dark smear of blood stained her pale ginger hair.
Clara smiled in response. “My name’s Clara.” Picking up an empty can of beans, she showed it to her helpers. “This is what we need, but not one that’s open like this. The ring on top cannot have any holes in it.”
“Got it,” Gabriel said. She hadn’t expected him to be behind her.
“Oh, I meant, keep a lookout at the bus,” Clara said.
“Yes, well, I thought maybe I could help you instead.”
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“Okay.” Why had he asked if he wasn’t going to listen? “We need food mainly, but ammunition wouldn’t hurt.”
Stick-like amalgamations, long since trimmed of flesh, occupied many of the vehicles. Clara barely recognised them as skeletons anymore, but with the children at her side, it was like seeing things through their eyes–a fresh perspective. A skull lay in the footwell of a small pink car, grime stretched over its dome, coating its features like a layer of flesh. Clara reached past it to get at an old rucksack, rotting beside it. The girl didn’t seem afraid of the dead, either she didn’t know what a skeleton was, or she was in such a state of shock that she couldn’t feel fear.
Ahead, Clara lifted the girl over a patch of broken glass. Her thin slipper-shoes weren’t suitable for the rough terrain, not like Clara’s steel-toe-capped boots. A buzzing sound caught Clara’s attention–like the whirring of a computer fan with something stuck in the spokes. She scanned the sky for the sound. But before she could spot it, the boy skipped around the side of a truck, brandishing something. “Is this it?”
“That’s the one,” Clara said, inspecting the can. Vegetable soup. She pierced it and smelled the contents. Spoiled, but not rotten, nothing a hot fire wouldn’t fix. “Good job… Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Sam,” the boy replied, a note of pride in his voice. “I’ll get more.”
“Show me where it came from,” Clara said, following the bot towards a large pickup truck with a canvas stretched over the boot. Sam climbed up inside and was rummaging around for more prizes. He and Clara seemed to share something in common: staying active provided him with a semblance of control, stability. That was good. It was a useful trait in the apocalypses.
The thrum of an engine cut through the canyon. Clara’s head shot around. It came from back the way they had come. Had Andy managed to get a vehicle started? If so, that was a miracle, so long as it was something agile like a motorbike which could cut through the traffic. They could use it to carry the injured and pick up their pace. Perhaps Clara could scout ahead with the bike, or send a messenger to Milltown to expect their arrival.
“Come on, this will do. Sam,” she said. “Let’s go back.”
A cloud passed over the canyon. The engine grew louder, and with it, a sense of unease. So the vehicle wasn’t stationary. But what kind of engine was that? A truck? A tank? Climbing on top of a car bonnet, Clara stared down the highway towards a bend in the road where the survivors gathered. Gabriel turned around and walked back towards the approaching vehicle, his biker’s helmet full of scavenged supplies. It couldn’t all be food; thinking back to his cluttered bunker, she wondered what useless crap he’d taken from the cars.
There was an impact, and a dreadful screech shrieked across the canyon like someone was dragging an enormous metal fork over the rocky walls. Then the glimmer of polished metal reflected the waning sunlight. Clara squinted, though her eyes were unfocussed, fatigued. Some large machine waded through the wreckages. The trumpet of a horn startled her, and sent a shiver through her body into her fingers. She recognised the sound, modified pipes distorting it to sound like a baying stallion. The Trojan battlewagon. The Patricians.
“Come here,” Clara said, picking the girl up and overhead, handing her to Sam. “Stay in the boot, pull the canvas over your heads. If anything happens, stay here.”
Sam looked puzzled, but did as he was told. Behind her, more engines joined in the mix, distinctly motorbikes. Clara remembered having seen them parked outside the Patrician’s church outpost in Milltown. Why were they here? Had they detected her distress signal? The timing of their arrival was uncanny. Her gut told her that something was wrong. The last time Clara had spoken with Alister was about a week ago, and he had said something about her not having a choice in her future. Is this what he meant?
She withdrew her sidearm and turned towards the sound, but paused. What good would five bullets do? She had better rely on her Augmentation’s abilities, and besides, the pistol could mean a lifeline to the kids if they got into trouble. “Take this,” she said to Sam, making sure the safety was on. “That’s a very dangerous tool. Do not point it at anything you don’t want to hurt. This is the safety, this is the chamber. The bullets come out of this end. You’ve seen action movies, right?”
Sam nodded.
“You know what this does then?”
His expression was blank. He looked from the pistol to Clara and shrank away into the dark under the canvas.
“Don’t be afraid,” Clara said. “You’ll need this to protect your sister.”
“My sister?”
“Daisy, here.” Clara smiled at the little girl and handed Sam the weapon, then pulled the canvas over their heads and turned to meet the Patricians.