White and Other Tales of Ruin Read Online Free PDF Page A

cliffs. To our left — the direction Brand was now facing — snowfields led up a gentle slope towards the moors several miles inland. It was a rocky, craggy landscape, and some rocks had managed to hold off the drifts. They peered out darkly here and there, like the faces of drowning men going under for the final time.
    “ What?” I said again, exasperated. I’d slipped the shotgun off my shoulder and held it waist-high. My finger twitched on the trigger guard. Images of Boris’s remains sharpened my senses. I did not want to end up like that.
    “ I saw something moving. Something white.”
    “ Some snow, perhaps?” Charley said bitterly.
    “ Something running across the snow,” he said, frowning as he concentrated on the middle-distance. The smoke from his joint mingled with his condensing breath.
    We stood that way for a minute or two, steaming sweat like smoke signals of exhaustion. I tried taking off my glasses to look, but the glare was too much. I glanced sideways at Charley. She’d pulled a big old revolver from her rucksack and held it with both hands. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a feral grimace. She really wanted to use that gun.
    I saw nothing. “Could have been a cat. Or a seagull flying low.”
    “ Could have been.” Brand shoved the pistol back into his belt and reached around for his water canteen. He tipped it to his lips and cursed. “Frozen!”
    “ Give it a shake,” I said. I knew it would do no good but it may shut him up for a while. “Charley, what’s the time?” I had a watch but I wanted to talk to Charley, keep her involved with the present, keep her here. I had started to realise not only what a stupid idea this was, but what an even more idiotic step it had been letting Charley come along. If she wasn’t here for revenge, she was blind with grief. I could not see her eyes behind her sunglasses.
    “ Nearly midday.” She was hoisting her rucksack back onto her shoulders, never taking her eyes from the snowscape sloping slowly up and away from us. “What do you think it was?”
    I shrugged. “Brand seeing things. Too much wacky baccy.”
    We set off again. Charley was in the lead, I followed close behind and Brand stumbled along at the rear. It was eerily silent around us, the snow muffling our gasps and puffs, the constant grumble of the sea soon blending into the background as much as it ever did. There was a sort of white noise in my ears: blood pumping; breath ebbing and flowing; snow crunching underfoot. They merged into one whisper, eschewing all outside noise, almost soporific in rhythm. I coughed to break the spell.
    “ What the hell do we do when we get to the village?” Brand said.
    “ Send back help,” Charley stated slowly, enunciating each word as if to a naïve young child.
    “ But what if the village is like everywhere else we’ve seen or heard about on TV?”
    Charley was silent for a while. So was I. A collage of images tumbled through my mind, hateful and hurtful and sharper because of that. Hazy scenes from the last day of television broadcasts we had watched: loaded ships leaving docks and sailing off to some nebulous sanctuary abroad; shootings in the streets, bodies in the gutters, dogs sniffing at open wounds; an airship, drifting over the hills in some vague attempt to offer hope.
    “ Don’t be stupid,” I said.
    “ Even if it is, there will be help there,” Charley said quietly.
    “ Like hell.” Brand lit up another joint. It was cold, we were risking our lives, there may very well be something in the snow itching to attack us … but at that moment I wanted nothing more than to take a long haul on Brand’s pot, and let casual oblivion anaesthetise my fears.
     
    An hour later we found the car.
    By my figuring we had come about three miles. We were all but exhausted. My legs ached, knee joints stiff and hot as if on fire.
    The road had started a slow curve to the left, heading inland from the coast toward the distant