Decay Inevitable

“I’m going to the offy,” he said. “Peanuts. Want a beer? Salty doesn’t mind if you have the odd beer.”

Sean could think of nothing he wanted more, but he felt it was necessary to hold back a bit. If there was a weak link here, Tim might be it. His way in. And for that to happen, he had to behave differently from all the others Tim schlepped for.

“No, thanks,” he said. He didn’t wait to see how long his answer would take to sink in. He went back to the wall. Thinking about Naomi refuelled him. The bricks didn’t stand a chance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DEADSTRETCH

“ELI? ELI? COME on, chicken. Come on, wake up.”

Will watched her surfacing, struggling through any number of levels of sleep, or unconsciousness. Finding shallow areas, close to wakefulness, the pain set in, and he gripped her hand as hard as she gripped his.

“Where does it hurt, Eli?”

He had delicately lifted her jumper in an attempt to locate the source of the blood. A large bruise had wrapped itself around the side of her body, covering an area the size of a twelve-inch record. A small cut below her left breast had stopped bleeding and didn’t look as serious as he had feared. He didn’t know the extent of her internal injuries, if there were any. Will felt himself go weak at the thought of losing another woman, so close to him, in the space of twenty-four hours.

“We have to get you to a hospital, chicken,” he whispered. Elisabeth’s eyelids fluttered and for a moment she pinned him with a lucid, almost amused look. Then she drifted off again. Another shadow fell across her, and then a pair of small hands, probing and pressing.

“She won’t need the hospital. It isn’t all that serious.”

Will turned and smiled at the girl. “How can you know that? We’ll need some kind of stretcher. We need to get her on the road. Maybe we can flag down one of those helicopters.”

The girl came nearer. “There’s really no need. My father was a doctor. He taught me lots about accident victims. I know just about everything you need to know about car crash trauma.”

“Then why won’t she wake up?”

“She’s in shock. The body is just enforcing a period of calm, that’s all. She needs to rest. There’s no breaks. If she suffered any organ damage, we’d know all about it by now. She’d be dead. Just keep her lying down, with her legs raised.”

Will wanted to believe her but her reading of Elisabeth’s apparent distress as perfectly harmless was of no comfort to him. He assessed the girl again. She must have been around sixteen or seventeen years old. Freckles banded her nose. Her hair was long and blonde, but could have done with a wash. It hung limply against her shoulders. She wore a grubby white halter top and well-worn jeans. Converse sneakers. A tattoo, some Chinese symbol, made a black slash across the biceps of her left arm. Her name was Sadie. He had no idea yet as to why she was hiding out in an abandoned farmhouse. Small-talk wasn’t high on his current list of things to do.

“So okay, she’s out of the critical zone. Can we move her?”

“Why would you want to?” Sadie asked. “She can rest here. There’s plenty of food. Shelter’s good, if you find a part of one of the rooms that isn’t leaking.”

Will tried to read more from her face. He needed to know if he could trust her, quickly. But he had never been a great judge of character. “We need to get on,” he said, limply.

Sadie pouted. “Where are you thinking of going?”

“North,” Will replied. “We have to get to Warrington.”

“Nice,” she said, but Will couldn’t detect any sarcasm in her voice. “I’m heading north too.”

“Not with us, you’re not.”

Sadie smirked. “Oh really? Who’s stopping me?”

“Sadie,” Will said, in what he thought was his most authoritative voice. “We’re wanted. We’re being chased.”

At this, Sadie’s eyes widened. “Cool,” she purred. “I could help you.”

“No, really. Thanks but no.”

“You are being a total knob about this.”

Will smiled. “Am I?”

“Uh-huh. We’re both going north. What? You’re going to walk a few steps behind me all the way, are you?”

“I just think we’ll slow you down, that’s all.”

“Slow is good. I don’t mind slow.”

Will sighed. She was going to accompany them whether he liked it or not. “Okay,” he said at last. “What are you doing hiding here anyway?”

Sadie evaded the question. “We need something to carry your woman in.”

“She’s not my wo–”

“We could make a stretcher.”

They ended up lashing together some wooden planks from one of the barns. Will tied two lengths of rope to one end which he criss-crossed around his chest. Now Elisabeth could be transported, albeit roughly, across the terrain. Sadie strapped her in with more rope, wrapped with strips of cloth to prevent it from chafing her skin.

“How far are we from Warrington, do you reckon?” Will scanned the horizon beyond the radio masts. Rain was collecting there in dense blankets of cloud.

“I don’t know. Hundred miles?”