White and Other Tales of Ruin Read Online Free PDF

village. Its path had become less distinct, the hedges having sunk slowly into the ground until there was really nothing to distinguish it from the fields of snow on either side. We had been walking the last half-hour on memory alone.
    The car was almost completely buried by snow, only one side of the windscreen and the iced-up aerial still visible. There was no sign of the route it had taken; whatever tracks it had made were long-since obliterated by the blizzards. As we approached the snow started again, fat flakes drifting lazily down and landing on the icy surface of last night’s fall.
    “ Do not drive unless absolutely necessary,” Brand said. Charley and I ignored him. We unslung our rucksacks and approached the buried shape, all of us keeping hold of our weapons. I meant to ask Charley where she’d got hold of the revolver — whether she’d had it with her when we both came here to test the sea and write environmental reports which would never be read — but now did not seem the time. I had no wish to seem judgmental or patronising.
    As I reached out to knock some of the frozen snow from the windscreen a flight of seagulls cawed and took off from nearby. They had been all but invisible against the snow, but there were at least thirty of them lifting as one, calling loudly as they twirled over our heads and then headed out to sea.
    We all shouted out in shock. Charley stumbled sideways as she tried to bring her gun to bear and fell on her back. Brand screeched like a kid, then let off a pop with his air pistol to hide his embarrassment. The pellet found no target. The birds ignored us after the initial fly-past, and they slowly merged with the hazy distance. The new snow shower brought the horizon in close.
    “ Shit,” Charley muttered.
    “ Yeah.” Brand reloaded his pistol without looking at either of us, then rooted around for the joint he’d dropped when he screamed.
    Charley and I went back to knocking the snow away, using our gloved hands to make tracks down the windscreen and across the bonnet. “I think it’s a Ford,” I said uselessly. “Maybe an old Mondeo.” Jayne and I had owned a Mondeo when we’d been courting. Many was the time we had parked in some shaded woodland or beside units on the local industrial estate, wound down the windows and made love as the cool night air looked on. We’d broken down once while I was driving her home; it had made us two hours late and her father had come close to beating me senseless. It was only the oil on my hands that had convinced him of our story.
    I closed my eyes.
    “ Can’t see anything,” Charley said, jerking me back to cold reality. “Windscreen’s frozen up on the inside.”
    “ Take us ages to clear the doors.”
    “ What do you want to do that for?” Brand said. “Dead car, probably full of dead people.”
    “ Dead people may have guns and food and fuel,” I said. “Going to give us a hand?”
    Brand glanced at the dark windshield, the contents of the car hidden by ice and shadowed by the weight of snow surrounding it. He sat gently on his rucksack, and when he saw it would take his weight without sinking in the snow, he re-lit his joint and stared out to sea. I wondered whether he’d even notice if we left him there.
    “ We could uncover the passenger door,” Charley said. “Driver’s side is stuck fast in the drift, take us hours.”
    We both set about trying to shift snow away from the car. “Keep your eyes open,” I said to Brand. He just nodded and watched the sea lift and drop its thickening ice-floes. I used the shotgun as a crutch to lift myself onto the bonnet, and from there to the covered roof.
    “ What?” Charley said. I ignored her, turning a slow circle, trying to pick out any movement against the fields of white. To the west lay the manor, a couple of miles away and long since hidden by creases in the landscape. To the north the ground still rose steadily away from the sea, rocks protruding here and there