How To Avoid Death On A Daily Basis: Book Two (2 page)

After our experience with preparing rabbit, gutting and cleaning the fish was quite straightforward, if a little messy.

We roasted them over a fire and picked the flesh off the bones. There were a lot of bones. It tasted like regular fish, thankfully. We now had a ready supply of food and water. We also had the chance to wash our clothes and ourselves.

The girls went first while the boys sat on the road pretending we couldn’t hear them splashing about. Images of naked girls kept invading my thoughts, so I got up and started practicing with the sword.

I was really regretting giving up my spike. It was light and easy to use—aim at the head, stab, stab, stab. With a sword, you have to know what you’re doing. All I had to go on were movies I’d seen, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t the best source of reliable info.

What I discovered very quickly was that even a short sword that feels quite light at first, will make your arm ache after a few minutes of swinging it around. I’d alway planned on getting into shape at some point, like we all do I guess, but never really needed to. The bus stop was down the road from where I lived, and my job involved me sitting around most of the time. It never occurred to me one day I’d be fighting monsters.

Maurice followed my lead and waved his spear about, while Dudley examined the passing clouds. What we needed was more muscle.

“How many pushups can you do?” I asked Maurice.

He shrugged. “Ten? Twenty?”

“Really? Have you tried recently?”

“No, but ten isn’t a lot, is it?”

“What about you?” I said to Dudley.

“I couldn’t say, off the top of my head. About the same, I expect.”

“Okay, then, let’s see.” Neither of them moved. “Fine, I’ll go first.”

I got into position and started. The first two were easy. Number three and four were a bit of a struggle, and number five was a battle. Six got me down, but there was no getting back up. I stood up, panting.

“Five.” I nodded at Maurice. “Your turn.”

Maurice put down his spear and got on the ground. He did three.

“That’s five,” he said.

“That was three. The last two, your knees were touching the ground. We’re going to have to get a lot fitter than this if we want to fight properly. There’s no point having decent weapons if they end up wrecking us more than whoever we’re fighting.”

“My turn,” said Dudley, sounding very confident.

He got in position. First pushup was okay. Second one, his whole body trembled, but he managed to get back up with elbows locked. He lowered his body to the ground for number three, and stopped.

“That’s two,” I said, in case he’d lost count.

“Wait,” he said.

We waited. And waited. Very slowly, his body rose back up, his whole body shaking like a washing machine on fast spin. He finally made it to three pushups, and then collapsed onto his face.

Next, we tried sit ups and we each did thirty, which sounds quite a lot, but they were much easier and we were probably cheating them. All our faces glowed with sweat and we were too out of breath to speak.

“What are you doing?” said Claire.

I don’t know how long Claire and Flossie had been watching us, but probably long enough for us to make fools of ourselves. Not that it mattered very much right then. The girls had finished washing and were holding their wet clothes. They had both wrapped themselves in blankets, which covered their middle, but left plenty of skin showing. Legs. Lots of legs.

“Aren’t you going to go wash up?” asked Claire.

I realised I had been stood there gawping. “Yes. Of course. Right. Bathtime for baby!” I had no idea what I was saying. Maurice and Dudley joined in, equally flummoxed.

“Absolutely. Time for scrubbing the old bod,” said Maurice.
 

“Wash wash wash,” added Dudley.

With all the running around and trying not to die it was easy to forget we were young men with hormones and stuff. The sight of the girls was a firm reminder. Very firm.

As we got to the river I said, “You know, I think the best way to wash our clothes is to keep them on.”

The other two agreed immediately.

“Two birds, one stone,” said Maurice.

“Brilliant idea,” added Dudley.

We waded into the water, all three of us relieved we would have a chance to let things ‘settle down’ before getting naked. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s probably for the best.

Once we had bathed and given the clothes a good rinse, we returned to the girls. They had hung up their clothes on branches to catch the sun and were lying on their backs, the blankets falling away here and there to reveal even more flesh.

“Damn,” I said, clutching my stomach. “I need the bathroom. I might be some time.” And I rushed off. I didn’t need the bathroom, although I did need to relieve myself. It didn’t take very long. Both times.

When I returned, Maurice and Dudley had needed the ‘bathroom’ too.

“They’ve been gone ages,” said Flossie, sounding concerned.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” said Claire. “You think the fish wasn’t cooked properly?”

“No, you two would be affected too, then,” I pointed out. “Just, er, nature taking it’s course,”

I hung up my clothes on the nearest branches and lay down feeling much more relaxed. Within a few seconds I had fallen asleep.

When I woke up, my right arm, shoulder and back all ached. My stomach was also cramped up. Pretty normal reaction to doing some exercise after years of doing none, but if it was like this now, by tomorrow morning I’d be crippled.

It was late afternoon and the others were all dozing in the sun. I got to my feet and did some stretches, which helped a little, and then I woke the others up. No one felt like more walking, but a few choice swear words and a threat to leave them behind got them moving.

Our clothes had dried and we quickly got dressed and set off again. We decided to travel along the river bank rather than the road. We found various bushes and brambles covered in berries growing along the bank and picked loads of fruit. It was slower than the road, but we had a rolling buffet to keep us busy, which made things more interesting. And then it got a bit too interesting.

There was a roar from somewhere in the forest. It didn’t sound very close, but it did sound very terrifying. We rushed back onto the road. We heard the roar again, this time a little closer. We started jogging.

Ahead of us, the road continued to the horizon with no signs of buildings or people.

There was a noise like a tree falling over. Followed by more trees being ripped out of the ground and hurled into the air. We were so fixated on watching for any signs of a monster—not that I knew what to do if one did turn up—that we nearly missed the path leading north through the field.

It was two thin tracks divided by a mohawk of grass, like it had been made by a wagon. Far in the distance, there seemed to be something, but too far to make out what exactly. A building?

As we stood at the intersection wondering if it was worth diverting from our planned route to investigate, a crash followed by a lot of splashing made the decision for us. We sped down the track.

The sounds of destruction continued behind us. We picked up the pace as we speed-marched down the dirt track.

“What’s the plan?” said Maurice. “I mean, if that thing comes after us, what do we do?”

“We run,” I said, “and hope whatever’s at the end of this road has plenty of places to hide.”

The silhouette in the distance had started to take on the shape of a building, but it was still too far away to be sure what kind. In this world, when you ran from danger, you were just as likely to be running towards it at the same time.

“Do you really think we can outrun it?” said Claire, nervously looking over her shoulder.

“We don’t have to outrun,” I said. “We only have to outrun each other.”

This comment, which I felt was simply stating the truth, did not go down well.

Claire sped up until she was ahead of me and turned her head to give me a full-in-the-face glare. “You really think it’s okay to let Flossie get eaten?”

“Hey,” said Flossie, who was bringing up the rear and panting quite hard, “ah can move when ah have to.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dudley. “I won’t let you get eaten.”

“Worry about yourself,” said Flossie as she zoomed through the crowd and took the lead.

Everyone started overtaking each other, but in a casual
‘I’m not really running, I’m just stretching my legs’
kind of way. Nobody wanted to be at the back where monsters could get you.

Fortunately, whatever it was back in the forest didn’t come out, although the unnerving noises continued. We slowed down a bit as the sounds receded into the distance, partly because we felt safer, and partly because we were all knackered.

The fields on either side of the track had changed from grass to crops—corn, wheat, various green vegetables—and the building appeared to be a farmhouse. It took us about an hour to reach it.

The ranch-style house was a one storey wooden building with a large porch out front, and a small barn stood next to it. Chickens wandered around the yard and a goat tied to a post bleated at us as we approached. I didn’t see any people. Of course, as soon as we got within a few yards of the place, I found myself back in the lead with everyone else huddled behind me.

“Watch out for the goat,” said Maurice. “It might be trained.”

I wasn’t sure what he thought it might be trained to do, but it did have rather larger horns so I gave it wide berth, just in case. After everything we’d been through, I refused to be taken down by an attack-goat.

Our tightly packed group nervously advanced through the chickens—which had apparently been trained to shit everywhere—and climbed the steps onto the porch. Or, at least, I did. The lonely sounds of my footsteps on the wooden boards indicated the others had stopped just short and allowed me to take the final few steps alone.

I had the sword in my left hand. If things went pear-shaped, I could draw it from its scabbard and wave it around like someone who doesn’t know how to use a sword properly.
Will I hurt you? Will I hurt me?
What could be more intimidating?

After a moment to calm myself and think over what I was going to say, I knocked on the door and took a step back. I heard someone approach and then the door was yanked open to reveal a small woman. She was quite fat with her brown hair piled up on her head in a bun.

“Yes?” She wiped her hands on the apron around her waist. She didn’t look the least bit surprised to see me standing there. She didn’t look particularly pleased, either.

It took me a moment to remember what I planned to say. “Oh, hello. I’m Colin. How are you?” None of which was part of my prepared speech.

She looked me up and down, then past me at the others.

“We’re on our way to Fengarad,” I continued, getting back on track, but suddenly rushing so everything came out of my mouth at a million miles an hour. “We were hoping we could buy some food from you. We can pay. With money. Eggs, milk, bread, anything really. We don’t mind helping out if you need a hand or something like that. Do you have any? Food, I mean. We have money, like I said. Nice place you have here.” I made myself smile in what I hoped was an amiable manner, although it was probably more creepy than friendly.

She stared at me a bit more. It was the kind of look you rarely see outside a professional boxing match. It made me want to crawl away and take my chances with the monster in the woods.

“You’ll be the Visitors who arrived a few days ago.”

It wasn’t a question, and I couldn’t tell if she considered our arrival to be a good thing or not.

“Yes. Will you help us? So far, everyone we’ve met either ignores us or treats us like idiots for not knowing how things work in this world.”

A baby started crying somewhere inside the house.

“You better come in, then.” She turned and walked away, leaving the door open.

I followed her, rapidly joined by the patter of four pairs of feet behind me.