Tabitha (17 page)

14

‘God, you can
stop barking now,’ Tabitha told Laika, racing down an empty A-road. ‘You’re
giving me a headache. Lie down, get some rest.’ Eventually Laika tired of
watching the fields roll by, and lay down amongst the nest of blankets on the
back seat.

‘Pretty darn
comfy, I know,’ Tabitha said over her shoulder. She smiled at Laika’s big yawn.
Her heart soared at the feeling of being on the road. ‘We’re going north. I
think,’ she said. ‘Yeah look, there’s the sign for the motorway.’ Tabitha
caught herself checking her right for oncoming traffic before she crossed the
large roundabout.
If only,
she thought. If only this was the old world,
and she could cut in front of someone right now. She’d give anything for a
blazing row on the roadside, just for normal interaction again. Just to know
that there were rules to follow.
Tabitha crossed the roundabout and hit
the motorway, and put her foot down. She’d never imagined driving over a
hundred before. She’d always stuck to the limit. Apart from the odd abandoned
car to dodge, she had a clear run. She’d never felt so free. An empty motorway
had always looked beautiful in the old world; now it looked divine. She didn’t
have much of a plan, really; just head north away from the big cities, and hope
that somewhere out there was a little remnant of civilisation. She didn’t need
the road atlas on the passenger seat to head north, but it was bound to be
useful at some point. She’d just have to see what was waiting for her up there.
Hopefully there was a quiet village somewhere; a place the spiders hadn’t
found. It was just a relief to be out of their reach for a little while. Out of
danger.

The high sun
cast a warm glow over the old dashboard, warming the skin on her arms. It
didn’t do much to lift the sour damp smell from her clothes, though. She’d have
loved to swap them for fresh dry clothes, with that new laundry smell. She
kicked herself for not thinking of that when she’d been to get the car. She
could have raided the wardrobes in the house. Instead she was stuck in damp
blood-stained rags, which used to be a t-shirt and jeans a few days ago. There
was a creeping suggestion of BO too. It was another smell that she wasn’t used
to, having been a liberal deodorant user for as long as she could remember. The
new world would be a stinking one, she considered. Thrown back to a time before
plumbing and washing machines. As long as she wasn’t getting eaten though, it
was all good. Thinking about it, she felt a fresh insight into the prehistoric
way of life. Cavemen and cavewomen with guns, fighting silver spiders. They had
to be out there somewhere, and she was going to find them. She glanced over her
shoulder to the back seat, and smiled. Laika slept on peacefully as they raced
for the north.

It was around
early afternoon, Tabitha guessed, judging by the sun. She’d been driving for
ages; she knew that much. The fields and forests that lined the motorway had
given way to hills, and just the occasional farmhouse. Sheep and cattle lay
rotting in the fields as she raced past. She spotted silver spiders here and
there, standing out against the green and brown of the bracken slopes. One even
sat on the road up ahead, waiting forever, the way spiders did. Tilting the
steering wheel a little, Tabitha pointed the car at it. It loomed up before
her, unaware, and crashed against the bumper even louder than she’d imagined.
The spider flew off to the side, tumbling on the road. It finally came to a
stop with its legs curled up, pointing at the sky. Tabitha saw its body shrinking
in the rear-view mirror, and smiled.

‘Oh, I’m sorry
girl,’ she said, looking back at Laika, startled from sleep by the bang. Laika
looked from her to the road ahead, and started barking.

‘Oh my god,’
Tabitha muttered, ploughing the brake. A giant swarm of spiders spilled over
the nearest hill in the distance; a sea of jostling silver. Tabitha worked down
the gears and slowed right down. She watched from a standstill on the motorway
as the tide of legs writhed and tumbled down the slope. They spilled over a
field and onto the motorway, only a couple of hundred yards ahead. The swarm
cut straight across the lanes towards the fields on the far side, and clambered
over the barrier on the hard shoulder. Looking down into the valley on her
left, Tabitha saw a village in ruins. Apparently not ruined enough for the
spiders, it seemed. They poured down into the fields and clawed their way over
dry stone walls to invade it. Laika barked all the while, never taking her eyes
off the horde, like she wanted to take them all on.

‘
Shh
, now,’ Tabitha said soothingly, stroking Laika’s side.
There wasn’t much they could do for that village now. Laika whined and
hesitated, and lay back down on the covers. Sitting there at the wheel, on an
abandoned motorway in the middle of nowhere, Tabitha’s spirits sank. She’d
hoped to find some little corner of nowhere by now, untouched by the threat.
Somewhere she could rest; really rest. And not have to worry what might be
coming for her in the night. Civilisation, that’s what she was looking for. A
safe place, where tides of spiders couldn’t reach. It had to be out there,
somewhere. It was up to her to find it. The world could be a terrifying place,
with nowhere left to run… or hope could be waiting just around the next corner.

‘Well, we’ve
come this far,’ she told Laika, taking the handbrake off. The fuel gauge was
two-thirds down. She’d have to find some petrol soon if she wanted to survive.
Shunting the old gearstick into first then second, she took off down the empty
motorway and left the ruined village behind. She wanted to get as far north as
she could. There had to be somewhere left. Somewhere safe to hide away.

15

Laika
dreamt. Sharp
claws, reaching in the dark. They weren’t dogs. They didn’t have the decency to
bark and growl before they went for you. They weren’t cats, and they weren’t
for eating. They were only for killing. But you couldn’t always smell them
coming. Sharp legs, sharp little claws. They drank everything out, and every
day there were more of them.

The male human
had barked, lots. They’d walked so far to find the town, through woods and
fields. He had hard heavy paws, and he’d used them. He made the big building
into their home, and there was no way out. He hit. One time he hit and she
couldn’t hear well afterwards, and she had to hide away from him. There was
nothing to eat, and he barked more and hit more when he got hungry. Then he
left her alone in the big building. She watched him walk away. She saw him get
killed through the window, and she barked and cried, but there was no way out.

Then the female
came. The female had hard paws too, harder even, but she used them for
stroking. She was gentle, and kind, and she never barked. She had a salty face;
it tasted good. She made sounds that didn’t mean anything, but they were nice
sounds. They were sounds to sleep to; sounds nice to hear. She never hit. She
brought food. She looked after her, like they were their own little pack. They
protected one other.

Sharp claws in
her dreams, reaching for her. A fight with them. She’d been walking with the
female and resting, and then there was the big male invader. Her female had
defended her against him. Then there were claws, cutting. The pain, and the
smells, and the blood. The female took her away and protected her, and cut away
her fur with her paws to lick her wound. It was bad. She thought she was going
to die. Somehow her human had closed up the skin, stopped the blood. She’d felt
so tired, but it didn’t hurt so much. The female had brought her water to
drink, just like the male had once in a while.

The female was
kind, but then she went away too. She’d never felt so upset. She’d thought that
the female was going to die outside on her own, but there was no way out of
there to reach her. No way to defend her. She’d never felt so happy before
either, when the female came back. Now they were moving in the metal box,
moving without walking, racing past fields and hills. The pain had faded away.
Now there was only warmth, and sleep, and her female. She could have died happy
now, so safe and wanted.

‘What are you
dreaming about, dog face?’ Tabitha said softly. Laika looked up from the back
seat, patting her tail gently against the nest of blankets.

‘You run in your
sleep,’ Tabitha told her fondly. Laika didn’t understand her human’s noises,
but she liked them. They were gentle sounds to rest to. Sounds to take her mind
off the reaching claws in her dreams.

16

‘Bloody petrol
stations,’ Tabitha mumbled, folding the seat forward for Laika to jump out onto
the forecourt. They were really out in the countryside now, surrounded by hills
and a pale blue afternoon sky. Birds sang in the trees. Tabitha hadn’t wanted
to stop driving until she’d run out of road, and they were far away from
everything. But the petrol gauge was right into the red, and the motorway
services was the first place she’d seen with any cars around. The petrol pumps
didn’t work. Tabitha looked around and squinted in the bright sunlight,
scratching her arm.

‘How do I do
this?’ she asked Laika, opening the cap on her car’s petrol tank. Was there
some way to open up the pump? Would she have to syphon it from another car?
Laika finished her business outside the front of the shop, and sniffed around for
a while before she came back over.

‘You finished
your dump there, dog face?’ said Tabitha, looking for some way to open up the
petrol pump stand. ‘Must be satisfying?’ she asked her dog. ‘Well, I’ve not
been in days. So I’m a tiny bit jealous right now.’ Tabitha didn’t even feel
the need to go. She hadn’t eaten anything in days, really, so it was no
surprise. Laika padded over and looked up at her, open-mouthed and smiling.
Waiting patiently, attentively. Tabitha knew what she wanted. She pulled a dog
food tin from the pack in the car boot, and tore the metal open to let the food
slop down onto the forecourt.

‘I don’t think
I’ll ever get tired of doing that,’ Tabitha said with a smile, putting the
torn-open dog food tin down on the petrol pump. She studied the petrol nozzle,
and the hose. She hoped against hope that the pump would still come on when she
lifted the nozzle; it was dead. With no electricity to power the pump she’d
have to get the petrol out herself, somehow. Even despite the new strength in her
hands, there was no way the petrol pump was coming apart. With Laika lying down
beside her, Tabitha took out her hunting knife and tried to prise the pump’s
metal casing apart at the seam. There just wasn’t any give; she’d probably
break the knife blade before the casing budged.

‘Well, that was
a rubbish idea,’ she told Laika. She gave up on the pump and went rummaging in
the car boot. ‘Now I don’t want you to freak out or anything, but I might have
gotten you a present.’ Tabitha produced a tennis ball, scabby and pre-chewed,
which met with Laika’s rapt attention. Smiling, Tabitha launched it over the
wide open forecourt towards the car park. Laika threw herself after it, claws
scratching and clattering across the concrete. By the time she came bounding back
from the car park to drop the slobbery ball at her feet, Tabitha had given up
on dismantling the pump. She threw the ball high over the car park again, and
watched her collie pant and charge and shrink into the distance after it.
Tabitha tried to pull away the petrol cap on the car parked nearest to her own,
but she’d need the keys. They weren’t in the ignition. Maybe they were inside
the shop somewhere, dropped around their owner’s empty skin. She didn’t fancy
searching for them, especially if there were spiders lurking in the dark shop.
Trying another car, it was the same story again. The keys were nowhere to be
found.

‘For god’s
sake,’ she muttered to herself, looking around the forecourt at the abandoned
cars.

‘I don’t know
what to do,’ she told Laika, who dropped the ball down beside her again. The
ball bounced and rolled off along the forecourt. Laika skittered after it,
mouth open to catch it, and brought it back again.

‘Sorry,’ said
Tabitha, throwing the ball again absentmindedly. She crossed her arms, sighed,
and stared at the stubborn petrol pump for the answers. She could try the fuel
caps on other cars, she supposed. But even if she found the keys to get the cap
open, how was she going to syphon the fuel out? Modern cars had something in
the pipe to stop people doing that; she’d seen it on TV.

‘Ok. Lateral
thinking and such,’ she told herself, studying the car. ‘The fuel goes in there
and down into the fuel tank. So…’ she glanced at the jagged dog food tin
resting on the petrol pump. The realisation made her smile; a tiny victory.
‘Let me at the fuel tank.’

Tabitha punched
at the locked boot on the newer car until she could wrench it open. Sure enough
there was a jack inside. She lay it under the car with a clatter and wound the
handle, tilting the car up to take a better look underneath.

‘You look like a
fuel tank,’ she told a square bulge under the car. There was a big screw there;
it wasn’t coming loose without a wrench though. Instead she gripped the edge of
the metal tank and squeezed. Squeezed harder, until her hand trembled. Slowly
the steel tank cratered and puckered, and bent in her hand. Straining, she tore
a crack in it. Petrol dribbled from the slit, pattering down on the forecourt.
The smell filled her head.

‘Crap
crap
crap
,’ she muttered,
wriggling out from under the car. She ran into the shop, cursing her lack of
planning. Just as well that there weren’t any spiders in here; she’d run in
without thinking. She grabbed a pair of plastic petrol cans and raced back
outside to the car. She placed the container under the trickle of petrol, and
pulled the crack wider with a finger until it was gushing like a tap. The
plastic can drummed with the flow like a bath running.

‘I hope you had
time to fill it right up before the apocalypse,’ she told the car, as if the
driver was still sat inside. ‘Otherwise this could take a
long
time.’
Looking around at the handful of abandoned cars on the forecourt, she just
hoped they had enough petrol between them to fill up her car’s tank. The flow
of petrol tailed off then, ending with a sorry little trickle into the plastic
can. So it was going to take a long time then. Tabitha sighed, and threw the
ball for Laika.

Laika seemed to
have endless energy where a tennis ball was concerned. Tabitha was glad of the distraction
while she squeezed at the petrol tank on the next car along, trying to tear it.
She shifted her grip on the smooth tank, squeezed, but she couldn’t get a
proper hold. She stopped when the thought hit her.

‘You’re an
idiot,’ she mumbled to herself, remembering the hunting knife on her belt. If
she could get the blade through a spider’s skin, she could get it through this.
She pressed the knife point into the tank and stabbed it through, and pulled
the plastic petrol can under it to catch the flow. It was fast; she’d rapidly
filled up the first plastic can and switched it for the second, and ran back
into the shop to grab the rest from the shelf.

Tabitha looked
proudly at the full plastic petrol cans, lined up beside her car. She’d never
known that filling a car up could feel this satisfying, as she popped the
petrol cap and glugged the first of her harvest into the tank. Laika had lain
down to chew her tennis ball in the sun. Tabitha had hoped to have a few cans
of petrol left over to go in the boot, but the last one went into the tank and
still there wasn’t any sign of an overflow. When she turned the key in the
ignition though, the needle on the fuel gauge jumped up into full territory. It
was a good feeling, a deep satisfaction. She’d bled every car in the place, and
still there’d only been just enough petrol between them to fill her tank for
the next couple of hundred miles. But, for now at least, the road trip was back
on.

Tabitha took a
few gulps from one of her water bottles. Rainwater probably wasn’t the best
stuff to be drinking, she supposed, and there were
silty
bits in it from the drainpipe. But it was better than nothing; the shop here
had long been emptied of bottled water. She couldn’t get over how little
appetite she had, though. Maybe she should have tried inside the main services
building, and look for any scraps in the fast food restaurants. But she had a
bad feeling about what could be waiting inside. With so many miles of
countryside all around here, it was the perfect place for spiders
to
nest. The sun was going down, and the thought of silvery swarms wouldn’t leave
her head. She wanted to be a hundred miles from here, out in the back of beyond
where the spiders couldn’t find them. She looked around to make sure she hadn’t
left anything, and opened the car door for her dog.

‘Come on, dog
face,’ she said, getting Laika comfy in the back. ‘Let’s go.’

Getting the petrol together had taken
longer than she’d thought. The sun was dipping down behind the trees lining the
road, and really she’d only just left the services behind. The gathering clouds
didn’t help either, and a little while later she was straining to see the road
in the dusk. She passed an abandoned coach that stood dead in the slow lane.
The road around it was littered with greying skins, ghostly pale in the failing
light; the passengers who must have tried to run away.

Tabitha hadn’t
wanted to stop driving, but the headlights weren’t working and it was getting
too dark to see. She parked up in a lonely old mechanic’s workshop, out on the
edge of a ghost town. She closed the old wooden doors on the night, checked for
any sign of spiders inside, and settled back down in the car and locked the
doors. She tilted the seat back as far as it would go, and pulled a blanket
from the back. Laika took a sudden interest in her face in this new position,
and gave her a thorough licking. Laughing, Tabitha fought Laika back.

‘Get some sleep
you,’ she said softly, stroking Laika where she lay. Tabitha pulled a blanket
over herself, and curled up against the cold night. She heard Laika breathe in
the blackness behind her; short deep sniffs. She stroked Laika’s fur without
feeling it. ‘Sweet dreams.’

The next day’s drive took them down
twisting country roads, punctuated here and there with abandoned trucks and
cars. The
lakeland
towns up here were small and
scenic, all grey stone houses and arty little cafes on winding streets. All
beautiful places to live, Tabitha told herself… if not for the fact that the
spiders had overrun them. Their big silver bodies were splayed murderous
against the stone walls of shops, or sat clutched and bunched like fists in the
tight gaps between the buildings. Tabitha’s safe-haven daydream had long since
crumbled to dust as she drove on through. Rotten skins tumbled on the streets.

There were fewer
towns and villages further north. The road took her on past wild fields and
rugged crags, and still the silver spiders lurked here and there on the
landscape. The road wound on through lonely hills, sided with mossy dry-stone
walls older than tales. The engine roared guttural and threw them on down the
wild roads; a steel hymn.

Tabitha yawned and hung on the steering
wheel. Laika was asleep. A straight silent A-road gave way to winding country
lanes, and the landscape changed personality again. On her right, pine forests
sloped up above the road. Lakes and mountains stretched out bleak and beautiful
on her left, filling her view like an epic movie scene. Even here, she glimpsed
a flash of silver scuttling between the trees. She felt a cold jolt of shock
and steered around a huge spider on the road, drinking out the corpse of a
deer. Wasn’t there anywhere they hadn’t reached?

By the afternoon
she was well over the Scottish border, further north than she’d ever been in
her life. Every town she detoured through, it was the same story. Shattered
windows, blowing skins; urban graveyards. Since then the bricks and concrete
had given way to lonely roads and villages; scattered pubs and farms. A while
later these had given way to endless miles of stark, empty heath. She tore down
miles of bleak road, looking for signs of life. She raced on past moors cloaked
in mist that rolled down off the mountains, and welled in ancient pine forests
around her. She sighed and yawned, and turned off at a junction in the country
road to head towards the sea in the distance.

Tabitha’s arse
felt numb in her seat by the time she reached the coast. There weren’t any
signs around here; she could only guess at where she’d brought them. Studying
the road atlas when they’d parked by the beach, it looked as if she’d headed as
far north as she could go on the motorway. After that there was only a sparse
tangle of winding A-roads on the atlas, snaking their way through lochs and
mountains deep into the north. The dark waves rushed and tumbled on the cold
brown beach. Looking around, she glimpsed another dead empty deer on the moors
behind her.

‘It’s the middle
of nowhere, and the spiders have still been through here,’ Tabitha told Laika. Pissed
off, she threw the atlas down on the car bonnet with a slap. She looked from
Laika to the slobbery tennis ball she’d dropped at her feet. The sky hung
lead-grey over the sea, promising rain.

‘We’ve not see a
bloody soul, have we?’ she said grimly. For a moment, Laika seemed to stand
there listening to her. But Tabitha’s problems weren’t her focus. All she
wanted was another throw of the ball.

‘I wish I
thought like you, dog face,’ she said, reaching down for the slobbery tennis
ball. She caught a whiff of Laika’s breath in front of her, sweet and smelly,
puffing from her panting mouth in tufts of tumbling mist. ‘You only worry about
danger when it’s happening, don’t you? I envy you.’ She stopped tormenting
Laika’s
one-track mind and tossed the ball down the beach.
Laika took off after it like a shot, pounding four-clawed paw prints into the
damp dull sand. Holding the pages of the road atlas down against the wind,
Tabitha studied the road that had led her all the way up here. Her greasy hair
whipped at her face before she brushed it behind her ear; a tangle of bright
red curls in desperate need of a wash.