War For The World

CHAPTER TEN

Her lips were chapped. They had been for several days now. Shaking fingers moved violently upwards, nervously picking at the flakes of skin as she lay hidden in the bush. Blood reached the surface of her lips, and the tips of her fingers were now a deep red. That's ok, she thought to herself. It was a colour she had gotten used to.

Joan bit her lip as the humming grew closer. From behind the tree line ducked into the bush she was unable to make out the Martian vessel. Though after two weeks on the run she had come to easily recognise such a haunting sound.

Stomping, fast metal on gravel crunching as the thing sped past with a speed that gave her goose bumps. She didn't need to see it to believe it, the things were improving themselves.

Her throat ached. That was what she chose to focus on. Water had been scarce for the past two days and the struggle to continue walking became worse and worse. They needed rest soon, yet Mittleberg was still a four days trek away.

They'd started out great, trekking cross country during the day and resting through the night. The road had been their one constant throughout their laborious journey. At the start, it had been a case of stick to the shadows. The road had been alive with activity as vehicles raced backwards and forth. That was two weeks ago, the road was all but quiet now.

Every so often, one of the tripods would come. You'd hear it first, in the distance. That loud deep groan followed by the sound of trees crashing. When the roads began to shudder, that was often the cue to get down and hide.

She was lying on the ground, back pressed against the ground face up to the clouds. The sun had been kind recently, staving off the cold winter that had followed them like a bad smell for the first week.

Slowly, the crashing and thudding and moaning of the mechanical beast receeded and when she felt it was safe to move out, Joan rolled over onto her chest and pushed herself up.

She was filthy. Dry mud caked her shirt, a tight fitting short sleeved one she'd stolen off a cadaver not a few short days ago. Her arms were covered in cuts and bruises, as if her skin was one big horrific connect the dots picture. She wobbled to her feet as she tried to stabilise herself. After being down for too long her head was incurring a massive blood rush, and she took a moment to find herself. They needed food. They needed water. They needed safety.

A rustle from the bushes on the other side of the road as Alex and Louis appeared from within. Now, given the opportunity to take a good hard look at them, Joan was able to see the sort of toll this journey had had on them.

Louis had cuts trailing down the lower parts of his legs from an angry thorn bush a few miles back. His hair was miles past unkempt and dirt covered his soft pale face. Gripped tightly in his right hand was an old rusting cage, strands of grass and other leaves hung from it as the animal inside continued to rest. Alex had insisted early on they'd need to eat Cog to survive, something Joan refused to do. Her son needed the rabbit, he'd grown too attached to it. The small thing had survived easily over the past few weeks chewing on wild grass, though even it too was beginning to look skinnier than usual. Often time Joan had noticed Louis talking to it. Confiding in it. There was no doubt keeping the animal weighed them down slightly, she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

Alex's hair had begun to grow out from the standard issue military buzz cut. Bloodshot eyes cried out for better days and his uniform was hardly that, reduced to a tattered mess. Hands covered in cuts made weeks ago and never given time to heal.

Despite all of this, they were still here. Still alive. Joan needed to remind herself of that fact. They were winning. Beating the war at its own game even against its own terrifying twist.
The two smiled at her and she returned the compliment as they regrouped in the middle of the road, happiness seen as a courtesy as opposed to a necessity now a day.