Pandora's Wake, Part 6

Dr Almandinger gazed out of the window with increasing concern. She should be able to see the lights of the town of Bex by now, unless her sense of where she was had failed her utterly, of course, and they were further away than she remembered. She knew it was possible, people sometimes found it difficult to judge distance or location as precisely in the dark as they could in the daylight. Nonetheless she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.  Even accounting for the fact that the national grid was largely a memory since The Event, most towns ran generators to keep some light at night - even if only for the sentries to see by.



Maybe that was it, she had been looking for the lights of a pre-fall town, rather than the much more modest lighting a post-Event town could afford to keep running. After all, generators needed fuel and fuel was becoming increasingly hard to come by. Yes, that must be it, she reasoned. Then again, what about gas lamps, burning torches, wouldn't they be using those? She wasn't sure, even those things would be limited, they would run out of gas or oil, even burning brands were a resource that would eventually grow scarce. Perhaps the survivors at Bex chose to conserve such resources and operated a curfew?



Her mind wracked with doubt and uncertainty, Dr Almandinger turned to Cherubin, about to ask his opinion. She didn't need to, his hands grasped the steering wheel far more tightly than they needed to, as if he were clinging to it for dear life. His dark brow was furrowed, his eyes seemed to reflect the same worries she, herself, felt.



The two companions exchanged worried glances in silence.



* * * * * *



"Thor, this is Molnjir, come in please, over". Knut almost laughed with relief as he heard officer Mathias's voice over the static on the radio. The signal was weak but it was him.

"Molnjir, this is Thor actual. It is good to hear from you, we were getting worried! Over".

"Copy that Thor, we had to leave some of our vehicles behind - close encounter with some unpleasant guests - long story. Will tell you in person. Primary target was destroyed, we have one casualty. Injuries are serious but not critical at this time. Suspected broken ribs and nose, suspected limb fractures also. Over"

"Understood Molnjir. We will arrange treatment when we arrive in Bex. Our ETA to destination is now under ten minutes. Be advised you will encounter a destroyed UNCAIF column on the main road, advise against stopping. Possible lingering danger, details in person. Over".

" Copy that Thor, we will proceed without stopping. We are making good time and travelling at high speed, ETA Bex. Now just 25 minutes. Over."

"Message understood Molnjir. Thor out"



* * * * * * * * * *



Weariness ate away at Joanas.  His chest ached, his eyes burned and he could hear himself wheezing as he breathed.  A combination of lack of sleep and the effects of the alien fungal spores in his lungs made each meter of road a struggle as he drove the massive armoured vehicle that headed the front of the column.  Behind him he could hear Kurt was not having it any better. His corporal was coughing with increasing frequency and each fit seemed to be more violent than the last.  He dreaded to think how the other nomads were fairing.  Few were in quite the peak physical condition that he and Kurt had been at the beginning of the end of human civilisation, and weeks on the road with carefully rationed supplies, limited sleep and in a constant state of heightened tension and awareness had drained everyone.

Despite his best efforts the soldier's concentration began to drift. He imagined reaching Bex and trading something for a bed and a bath and if possible a meal that wasn't military issue MRE's.  The Meals Ready To Eat were well balanced, but you soon began to crave something else.  What he wouldn't give for some good Bavarian smoked cheese and decent sausage about now – not to mention something strong to drink that didn't taste as if Magda had distilled it from diesel fuel.

In his mind's eye he could see himself biting into some fresh fruit, the juices running down his throat – he missed it so much.



Up ahead the headlights picked out something the road, fist sized debris, scattered across it in seemingly random patterns.  For a second his mind, made sluggish by the difficulty he was having drawing breath, puzzled over what it might be.

“Shit!” he swore suddenly as the first in a series of pot holes in the road loomed up in front of him, jerking the steering wheel he narrowly avoided it, only to find himself having to pull the wheel hard down the other way to avoid the next crater in the surface of the road.  The MRAP bounced and careened dangerously as the road turned into a slalom of potholes and debris that had been blasted from the road by some form of explosive device.

Kurt fell hard into the back of the vehicle, letting loose a string of curses in German before he remembered who it was he was speaking to,

“Sorry Oberfeldwebel!” Kurt spluttered, a note of pain in his voice,

“Are you alight Balchmire?” Joanas called over his shoulder as he struggled to negotiate the ruined roadway

“Ja, I just hit my elbow and shoulder, what is going on?”

“Warn the rest of the column, this road is in ruins, craters and rubble everywhere!”  Even as Joanas gave the order he could hear the screeching of tires and brakes behind him.  Too late, the rest of the column had hit the start of the devastated road.



Kurt scrambled over the seat backs and climbed into the front passenger seat.

“Mein Got!  It's like a battle zone!  Are those... are those mortar impact craters?”  He asked, agape.

“I'm not sure, they may be.” Joans answers as he struggled to manoeuvre the massive vehicle between craters and debris, slowing it down to improve his control and praying no one else hit the back of the MRAP as he did so.  The column's formation had been tighter than he liked, but civilian drivers lacked the discipline of trained soldiers and nervousness has made many of the nomads bunch their vehicles.

“This is fiendish!” Joanas spat, as he swerved to avoid what appeared to be the wing of a car, lying in the road, bucked from some savage impact, “What the hell happened here?  Those infected Spaniards again, do you think?”  the question was only partly rhetorical.



From somewhere outside and behind them came the sound of screeching breaks, squealing tires and then a bone-crushing impact of metal on something solid and unyielding.

“Shit!  I think someone hit something!” Kurt yelled as the radio crackled into life

“Knut to all ears!  We have a vehicle off the road, pull up and prepare to assist! Over”

“Goddammit!” Joanas swore as he pulled the MRAP over to the side and slowed to a stop. “Kurt, get on the 50 calibre and cover us, I'll go and help with the rescue!”



* * * * * * * * * *

Father Mathias muttered prayers under his breath as he tried desperately to manoeuvre the bus through the maze of potholes and debris. He had slowed as much as he dared, with other vehicles coming up behind him, each of them had also slowed in time to avoid disaster but he could see in his mirrors that they were having less difficulty than he was with the ruined road.  Their smaller size and greater manoeuvrability made them more nimble than the several tons of airport bus he was driving.



In the back Madame Molnier tried desperately to calm her two terrified youngest children as her elder daughter, Delphine, a teenager who should by rights have spent the last year discovering boys and deciding what she wanted to do with her life instead of watching her father die and spending her days avoiding deadly alien animals, turned white with terror but managed, somehow, to comfort both her younger siblings and her mother at once.  Not for the first time Father Mathias was struck by just what a remarkable young woman Delphine was.  Her highly strung mother had been on the verge of hysteria since the Other-Verse came, but always Delphine mastered her fear and conquered her doubts, holding her mother together with a strength of character rare in one so young.  The nomads would be glad of the level headed French girl before it was all over, he had no doubt.



Up ahead other vehicles were struggling to negotiate the dreadful road, slowing to try and avoid disaster – and then it struck.  One of the larger vehicles – Ember's truck he thought, swerved, almost loosing loosing control but not quite.  Its rear tires threw something, he couldn't make out what, up into the air, striking the windshield of the car behind.  The world seemed to slow as Father Mathias watched the car begin to swerve, striking one of the pot holes with bone jarring force as its driver wrestled in vain to regain control.  It bounced across the road and slammed heavily into the barrier, its front end beginning to crumple as its rear end bucked into the air, then came down heavily.

“Oh God! It's the Elbers,” the priest gasped as the column began to grind to a halt, nomads leaping from their vehicles to run to the aid of their stricken friends.  Up ahead the giant armoured vehicle that led the column came to a stop and the figure of one of the German soldiers manning it appeared from the hatch in its roof, manning the great 50 caliber gun on top to give the column cover as they tried to execute a rescue.



* * * * * * * * * *

Mia Elber groaned. The world seemed soft and fuzzy as she tried to make sense of what had happened. Her husband had been driving when something shattered the windscreen and sent them into a spin.  After that everything was a blur.  She fought to stay conscious as the air bag enveloped her in its protective embrace.

“Jakob” she called weakly, with no response.  Panic began to spread through her.

“JAKOB!”

This time she was rewarded by a faint groan. 

“Are you alirght?”  A momentary pause followed by a pained groan.

“I'm... I'm hurt Mia.  My head” his voice was strained, faint, muffled in part by the two air bags that had deployed.

“Hang on Jakob, the others are coming, stay awake!” Her heart hammered in her chest. Whatever had hit them had struck the glass right in front of her husband's face.  She could feel several cuts and grazes on her own skin, how much worse had he suffered?  Struggling to wriggle free she jumped, startled, as her air bag burst with a sudden and unexpected bang.  Twisting in her seat, she could see Jacob, slumped into the air bag, his face a mask of pain and slick with a red wash of his own blood that ran down and stained the driver's air bag.  She stifled a gasp as she noticed the savage gash in his head.  Shards of glass littered the inside of the car.

A pale, worried face appeared at the window,

“I'm sorry!  I'm so sorry! Oh god are you all right in there?”  Ember gabbled, her guilt at the accident reducing her to near hysterics.

“It wasn't your fault!” Knut's voice drifted in from the darkness, “It could not be avoided.  Let's get them out so Dr. Almandinger can take a look then we will see if we can salvage the vehicle”



In an instant the world became loud and confusing as a dozen nomads arrived to help.

“It could be worse, if you had been going any faster...” someone said, their voice trailing off.

“MEDIC!” some one else screamed into the night “We have a head wound here!”

“Let me through! Let me see!” Dr Almandinger wheezed as she pushed the others out of the way.  “I might have to get at him from the other side?  Mia, can you get out?  Are you okay?”

“I.. I think so.  Yes” Mia tried to scramble out of her door, but something kept pulling her back into her seat.  She snarled in frustration, what was she caught on?  Dr. Almandinger appeared at her door,

“Your seat belt, Mia, you still have your seat belt on!” The doctor's voice was calm, reassuring. 

Mia laughed bitterly. In her confusion she had forgotten to release it. She released the clip and slid out of the door, helped by Dr. Almandinger,

“Come with me, I will take a look at you” Cherabin smiled comfortingly,

“The doctor will see to Jacob.” 

The large arms of the Belgian-Congolese nurse enveloped Mia, helping her from the wreckage and she sagged against him, glad to have someone take some of her weight.  She was shaking almost uncontrollably and felt as if she would be sick at any moment.  Behind her Dr. Almandinger slid into the passenger side and got to work.



* * * * * * * * * *

Ember groaned inwardly as she examined the stricken vehicle that the Elbers had been driving.  Sliding out from under it, she took her torch out of her mouth and stood up, wearily.  Her chest hurt and it felt as if she was breathing treacle. 

“Front wheel is buckled, I think the suspension is shot, and it's leaking oil.” She grumbled at Knut, “It's all repairable, given time, the equipment and a body shop.  Now the equipment I've got, but the  time and the shop...” she shrugged, letting her sentence hang in the air.  Glancing over her shoulder she saw Jacob's pained, white face through the car window. A number of nomads had gathered by the driver's door and Dr. Almandinger seemed to be busying herself inside, tending to his injuries.  Ember flushed,

“How is he?” she asked, her voice tinged with guilt.  In focussing on the vehicle, and if it could be salvaged, she had almost forgotten the injured man in the driver's seat above her.

Knut smiled comfortingly, perhaps reading her thoughts on her face,

“He will be fine.  They are just preparing to move him.  The doctor is making one last set of checks to be sure that moving him will not do him any more harm.  We have no ambulance, so he will have to go in the bus with the children.  I hope they will not be too frightened, but there is no choice”

The other vehicles had been drawn up in a semi-circle to provide a defensive perimeter as best they could.  The stricken car was too near the edge of the road to let them surround it completely.  Beyond the crash site the road gave way to forest and a rough incline that ran down the hillside.  Behind them, on the other side of the road, was more forest and an ascending slope.

A few minutes ago call sign Molnjir had caught up to the column and taken their places.  They had brought with them a casualty of their own in the form of the Polish civil engineer, Magda, who was even now being attended by Cherubin in the airport bus, which seemed to be doing double duty as a kindergarten and a field hospital.

“Kurt to Knut, I've got movement in the tree line about 20 meters out, multiple contacts, but I can't get a good look at them! Over”  Kurt Balchmire's voice drifted form the radio,

“Confirmed here” Joanas's voice joined in the radio traffic, “I can't be certain but I think they are some kind of large canine? Over?”

Knut's head sagged as he ran his hand over his face and balding head before wearily calling into the radio,

“Does any one else have a visual? Over?”

“Roger that Knut.” Mathais Farell answered. The policeman had insisted on joining the security perimeter immediately after returning from the mission to destroy the fungi, “I can see movement in the tree lines, but they seem to be holding position, just watching.  I can't confirm numbers, over.”  Farell lacked the night-sight goggles that Kurt and Joanas were using.

“Keep a close watch on what you can see, and prepare to fire if they get too close-” Knut began, just as he was distracted by the exited chatter of the nomads closest to the car. Glancing round he saw they had begun to remove Jacob from the wreckage.  Doctor Almandinger had left the car and was now overseeing the removal of her patient.  Dimitri, Ronan and several others were carefully hauling Jacob from the vehicle and laid him on a hastily constructed stretcher, made from branches and blankets.

“..erm.. Over” Knut spoke into the radio as he stepped aside to give the nomads room to move the make-shift stretcher past him.

“INCOMING!” Some one screamed into the night air, which suddenly came alive with the flash of weapons fire and tracer rounds, and the sound of gunshots

“CONTACT!” Kurt's voice burst in over the radio, swiftly joined by that of Joanas

“All stations we have contact.  Multiple hostiles closing from the north and north west through the tree line.  Aim low and provide suppressive fire into the trees and covering fire for the stretcher teams. Out”.

The rattle of weapons fire intensified as several dark forms burst from the tree line onto the road, tearing towards the exposed stretcher team and the wounded man.