Hypersonic Missiles

Sam

The nights weren't exactly quiet but tonight seemed noisier than ever. Not with the sounds of people or trouble, but the sounds of the rest of the world ticking on. Not everything had been killed by the impacts and just like humans, animals had been resilient too. Sure, you didn't see so many of them these days but that was because they were as wary as the rest of us. They heard you coming and they scarpered because just like you, they were trying to survive and everything was a potential threat. 

Usually I took comfort in the sounds of birds rustling trees, or a fox snuffling through rubble, but that night I couldn't find comfort anywhere. Instead it all had me on edge, listening to every tinker and twitch in the dark. Every crumble of bricks making my fingers twitch around the knife in my pocket. My adrenaline was peaked and I knew why. It was Ada. Knowing she was back at the caravan with Eli and the lads, worrying about us. Scared we weren't going to come back. Scared something bad was going to happen to us. When she'd been through as much as I was beginning to understand she had been, even a single scratch on my arm was going to scare her. Convince her that the outside world was too dangerous for any of us. I was putting too much pressure on myself but I couldn't help it. I wanted to make sure me and Ryan got back in one piece, completely unscathed so that I could prove to the little lass that we were capable, that we could keep ourselves and her safe. That she didn't have to spend every single second completely petrified. 

Because I knew that right now she was. 

"Relax would ye," whispered Ryan with a smirk when something like twigs snapping behind us sent me spinning around ready to fight. Ryan just chuckled, "you're making me nervous man,"

"Aye," I chuckled quietly, "makin meself nervous an all..."

"Just like any other night lad whatre you nervous for? Dream team me an you like?"

"Aye," I shrugged shaking my head, eyes scanning my periphery. Nothing. As much as the evening might have been filled with those scuffling shuffling, living sounds, we were, me and Ryan alone.

"C'mon lad," he said flashing me a grin over his shoulder, "if we take the underpass we'll be back twice as fast..."

"Nah," I said, "cmon lets just go the way we..." I trailed off, stopping and reaching for Ryan's jacket to stop him too. Though he'd seen it already. He'd stopped dead in his tracks too.

There was something just beyond the trees, something hard to make out from a distance but which we both knew we didn't really want to get any closer too.

"What do you think..." started Ryan, trailing off because he didn't really want to ask. And though I knew exactly what it was, I didn't really fancy telling him either.

"Bodies," I said looking at the strange shadow through the tree branches. It was strange sloping mass which rolled up slow like a small hill. But it didn't have the stability of earth on earth. It had the limp wavering outline of dead and dying people, their arms weak, hands barely hanging on.

I'd seen a mass grave before but only once. They didn't crop up so often anymore but they had after the second impact. When the hospitals had run out of bags and society was beginning to crumble. When the kids stopped getting their jabs and the bairns started dying of things bairns hadn't died from since the 50s.

Even then, they'd tried to keep the graves out of sight. They'd tried to keep people naive to the horror of the situation. The disasters sweeping the country, gathering like a rolling wave.

"Where dya think they've all..." started Ryan, faltering this time because I hushed him, a finger to my lips, my eyes still fixed on the shadow in the trees.

"Somets off.." I said, "people don't make graves like this anymore..." I said chewing my cheek, squinting as if I thought it would help me see things clearer. It didn't however.