Divinity Road Read Online Free PDF Page A

prospect of the approaching night. In the distance, off where the furthest debris has landed, he watches something large and dark swoop down from the sky, land next to a body and approach it in great hopping movements. It takes him a few seconds to recognise the vulture.
    He channels the panic into fury, redoubles his efforts and, when he least expects it, the casing opens and the first mechanism surrenders. Encouraged, he begins work on the second lock. By the time it, too, yields, the blisters have been rubbed raw and his hands are slippery with blood. He opens the case.
    He’s unprepared for what he sees, but feels a sense of satisfaction that the contents justify the effort put in to reveal them. He finds himself looking down at a sleek, elegant hunting rifle encased in rich black velvet. There are two slots sunk into the velvet for the small, trim magazines, a flap revealing an empty pocket for ammunition. He takes out the rifle, runs his hand along the flat wooden stock, the cold black barrel, the smooth curve of the telescopic sights.
    He recalls a visit to Ireland to visit Nuala’s relatives, her farmer cousin taking him out shooting with a shotgun, another episode of target practice with a small .22 rifle used for lamping rabbits. He senses that the weapon he now holds in his hands is vastly more powerful, and he feels a surge of adrenalin as he weighs it in his hands.
    He picks up the magazine, sees with disappointment that it is empty, reasons that gun and ammunition have perhaps been kept apart for safety reasons. Maybe somewhere among the cargo there is a separate package of rounds.
    And then he recalls a small steel case he’d spotted earlier near the food preparation section, another box covered in the SPECIAL ITEM tape. His first instinct had been to investigate, and he’d bent to remove the bundle that lay across it, recoiled in horror as he recognised it as part of a severed leg. Revulsion had replaced curiosity and he’d moved on.
    Now, though, he backtracks, locates the silver case quickly, forces himself to nudge aside the half-clothed limb, brings the case over to his tree and sets to work on the lock with his rock. He feels driven, works to a rhythm, his efforts more efficient. Within ten minutes the lid buckles, the hinges snap open and the top and bottom separate to reveal two boxes of ammunition.
    Next he attempts to load one of the magazines. There’s a sense of urgency in his actions, a need to protect his charges against scavengers, but it is this impatience that slows his progress, causes him to fumble with the shells, to misunderstand the system of loading the magazine, to attempt to fix it back-to-front to the underside of the rifle. In the war films it all looks so straightforward, he thinks. The soldier slots home the magazine with an expert fluency, the magazine itself is always fully loaded, seems to have an inexhaustible supply of bullets and rarely needs changing.
    He begins to panic and this clouds his judgement, muddles his systematic approach to mastering the weapon. Sweat’s running down his forehead, burning his eyes and turning his grip slippery. Take a deep breath, he tells himself. Calm down.
    He works through trial and error, a process of elimination. It takes him over twenty minutes, several false starts, before he gets the magazine loaded and fitted into the underside of the rifle. When he looks up he sees the original vulture he’d spotted has been joined by ten or so others, that more are looming out of the sky, spreading out, working away on several of the furthest corpses. He raises his rifle, aims and pulls the trigger.
    Nothing. The trigger is jammed and at first he fears he’s made another mistake with the magazine. He closes his eyes and tries to visualise footage he’s seen of gun fire. He pictures a cocking action, a bolt being slid back, something to direct the first bullet to the chamber. He examines the rifle and sees a likely-looking lever. He twists it