Old World (The Green and Pleasant Land) Read Online Free PDF Page A

we made out way to Ravensburg. It was sturdy, spacious, secure and it had a massive steel bumper that was just screaming out to be covered in cadaver entrails.
    We'd all spoken about coming back here once we'd visited this hospital, once Ellie was better. Even so we packed as if it was the last time we would see the little white cottage, hidden by a fortress of trees and thick thorny bushes.
    Several days after the death of the old man and with the car fully loaded we prepared to say goodbye. I walked down to the lakeside and stared out over the water for a time. We'd seen an increasing number of cadavers emerge from beneath the glittering gateway of the lake. It was this increasing cadaver presence along with Ellie's worsening cough that was giving them the impetus to move on. That and the many armed creature which I'd killed.
    I had in the end told Sue about what I'd seen, I lay in the soft glow of the morning light one day and told her about the nightmare, about my worry about what it might mean. That rather than healing in any way the world out there was becoming sicker every day. She managed a few hollow comforts in return. Too busy with her own dark dreams, uncertain which malign fate to curse with greater fervour, the death of the species or the death of the family.
    I skimmed a stone and turned my back on the water. I joined the rest of the Locklear clan in the car and without a word or a backwards glance we set off from Windermere, back out into the big wide world.

    Ravensburg wasn't far from where we were. Maybe an hour and a half’s drive, dependent on traffic of course, I smiled despite myself at my rather inappropriate inside joke. There would be no traffic. The only obstacle we might encounter on the actual road was a queue of stationary cars, dead metal boxes which had long ago ceased to be traffic and were now just part of the terrain.
    However the road we were taking was not a major one and unlike the arteries which snaked their way out the cities I hoped to find it relatively clear of obstructions. The owner of this particular vehicle, Mr Dan Holly, a neighbour of Mrs Robinson, had very kindly left me a pair of tinted driving glasses for the journey today. I remarked to the kids that I looked quite cool in my dark glasses, they remarked that I was a delusional sad case. It was just like old times.
    During the long flight from the city when the shit had been fairly consistently hitting the fan every single day we'd seen a lot of carnage. Many fires had burned with no one to put them out.
    Similarly even after we had escaped the concrete leviathan we'd stood on many hilltops and watched the towns and cities burning. The combination of unattended accidents, looting and a general desire to destroy things had painted a picture of a nation in flames. By day columns of smoke could be seen rising up into the sky like slow moving tornadoes of ash and grime. By night the horizon was illuminated by constant false dawn as the orange glow of burning Britain lit the sky and filled our nostrils with the scents of destruction from dawn to dawn and dusk to dusk.
    Up here, in the more rural part of the world things seemed remarkably different. Fences were still standing, bluebells danced and swayed by the side of the road. To our utter amazement at one point we passed a field in which there stood a herd of cows, absently chewing the grass and staring vacantly at the infrequently seen car as we passed by.
    Despite the normality of the country idylls at which we marvelled there were some very stark reminders of the kind of world in which we now lived. As we neared the north part of the lake we passed just south of the town of Ambleside. The national express coach which had been blockaded across the main road going into the town was covered in bullet holes and a large crudely written sign which simply said 'stay away'. Whether this was a threat or a warning the Locklear family did not want to find out.
    Those parts of the town