Decay Inevitable

THEY WERE A mile shy of Rugby, the radio masts clearly visible, when the car in front of them lifted into the sky. The beginning of Eli’s startled cry was eclipsed by an explosion that seemed to rupture the air itself. In the moment before their car was flipped over by the shockwave, Will thought he caught a glimpse of what death meant. It shimmered in the core of bloody colour spraying from the split petrol tank of their doomed neighbour; it engulfed the car with a film of uncertainty, before the flames tucked in and ruined the illusion of insubstantiality with some of their own. And then a pocket of dark to hide in for a while, as all around them pieces of the sky and the earth swapped places.

HE REVIVED FIRST, certain that Elisabeth was dead. A lump the size of a walnut had risen from the side of her head, just above her ear, which was torn and bloody. A tooth had been chipped and her lip was swollen and red. A worrying amount of blood had darkened the area of her T-shirt that covered her breasts.

“Eli.” Will reached over and dug into her throat with his fingers, searching for signs of life. It was there, a pulse stronger than he was expecting. He breathed out, shocked by sudden tears. He must not fold now; they might still be in danger from the fires. Although the windscreen was a riot of cracks, rendering the glass opaque, he could see how the sky was orange and waxy with movement.

Will managed to kick open the corrugated mess of the door. His seatbelt was preventing him from falling on top of Elisabeth; the car had come to a stop on the passenger side. Grabbing hold of the steering wheel, Will released the belt and hauled himself through the gap, gritting his teeth to an agony that never came. Now he could see the road, or what remained of it. Great jags of tarmac had been forced into the air, as if from a tectonic collision. Smoke rose, either in urgent, pumping cones of black or gently wafting veils, depending on the severity of the flame that fuelled it. Will stopped counting when he reached twenty charred vehicles. Another dozen or so had escaped the fires but disintegrated in the ensuing pile-up. Rounding the crimped bonnet of the Golf, he saw a limb on the roadside, neatly encased in a pink cardigan sleeve. The fingers were gripping a half-eaten chunky Kit Kat.

Will rubbed his face as he felt the heat draining away from it. Fainting wasn’t going to be of use to anyone. He pressed his shoulder against the roof of the car. By rocking against it, his movements becoming progressively more violent as the balance shifted, he was able to generate enough momentum for it to right itself. Elisabeth jounced and flopped in the passenger seat, her senseless movements like those of a soft toy, renewing Will’s nausea. For a moment, he believed the car might be all right for all its dents and fractures, but then he saw there was no road to drive upon, even if the engine did turn.

Sirens flew into the hot sky behind him, at a distance too great for him to fathom what was causing them. He couldn’t understand the reason for the panic that flitted through him; Elisabeth might be critically ill, she might need urgent medical attention.

So why am I doing this? he asked himself as he wrenched open the passenger door and eased her out of the seat. Her arms jerked under his touch; she said: “Not in that colour,” before falling silent once more.

He tip-toed with her through the wreckage, hoping to find a gap in the buckled road, but the trauma had been too great. Walking wounded drifted by him, ignoring him, as dazed as lost tourists.

The embankment was littered with broken glass and hot rinds of metal. He staggered to the bottom where a fence pegged back a ditch and a field that fell away to a smudge of woods. Cows chewed like outlaws in a Western. Smoke rolled down the embankment here. Will strode through it, trying to shut out the dreadful cooking odours that enveloped him. He was on the other side of the smoke wall, angling his way back up to the road when he again had the curious epiphanic certainty that he understood death, that its secret was somehow within his grasp. He almost dropped Elisabeth. To his right, limning the edge of the oil-smoke, sunshine picked out what appeared to be solid surfaces, dented and mottled like beaten tin. Yet there was nothing behind it, no caved-in car or jack-knifed juggernaut. Someone was screaming somewhere. His attention diverted for a second, the moment was lost: just oil-smoke rolling into a brilliant winter sky.

The clamour of rescue behind him, Will breasted the embankment to find more confusion. The explosion that had halted him was not the only one. The distant road sported similar eruptions. Will almost hoped that Elisabeth would die; the remainder of his journey would have to be by foot.