The Girl With All the Gifts(94)

He’ll get to the river, which can only be another five miles or so, and then he’ll take stock. As he walks, the rain clouds roll on past and the sun comes out again. Gallagher is surprised, in a dislocated kind of way, to see it again. The warmth and the light seem to have nothing in common with the world he’s journeying through. It even makes him a little uneasy–dangerously exposed, as though the sun is a spotlight focused on him, keeping pace with him as he walks.

Something else too. He sees movement in the street ahead of him that makes him jump like a hare and all but piss himself. But then he realises it’s not in the street at all. There’s nothing there. It was the shadow of something moving behind and above him, up on one of the rooftops. A junker? Didn’t look big enough for that, and he’s pretty sure he would have been shot in the back already if they were on him. More likely a cat or something, but shit, that was a bad moment.

He’s still shaking, and his stomach feels like it’s going to do something that might be slightly projectile. Gallagher finds a place where the rusting remains of a car screen him from the street, and sits down for a moment. He takes a drink from his canteen.

Which is almost empty.

He’s aware suddenly that there are a whole lot of things he could really do with right now, and flat-out doesn’t have.

Like food. He didn’t feel like he could steal one of the backpacks when he left, so he’s got nothing. Not even the packet of peanuts he’d slipped under the pillow of his bunk for later.

Or his rifle.

Or the empty tube of e-blocker he was going to peel open so he could rub the last nubs of gel over his underarms and crotch.

He’s got his sidearm and six clips of ammunition. He’s got a little water left. He’s got the compass. And he’s got the grenade, which is still in the pocket of his fatigues where it’s sat ever since they abandoned the Humvee. That’s it. That’s the whole inventory.

What kind of idiot goes for a hike through enemy territory with just the clothes he’s standing up in? He’s got to resupply, and he’s got to do it fast.

The lock-up garage where he and Justineau found the snack foods is a couple of miles behind him now. He hates to double back and lose time. But he’d hate starving to death a whole lot more, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll find another mother lode like that between here and the Thames.

Gallagher stands up and gets himself moving again. It’s not easy, but he immediately feels better, just to be doing something. He’s got a defined goal, and he’s got a plan. He’s going backwards, but only so he can go forwards again and get further this time.

After five or six turns, compass or not, he’s totally lost.

And he’s pretty much certain now that he’s not alone. He doesn’t see any more moving shadows, but he can hear shuffling and skittering sounds coming from somewhere really close by. Whenever he pauses to listen, there’s nothing, but it’s right there behind the sound of his own footsteps when he starts walking again. Someone is moving when he moves, stopping when he stops.

It sounds like they’re almost on top of him. He ought to be able to see them, but he can’t. He can’t even be sure what direction they’re coming from. But the shadow he saw… that was definitely cast by something up on the roof. If he’s being stalked, Gallagher thinks, that would be a great way for the stalker to stay close to him without being seen.

Okay. So let’s see them jump clear across the street.

He breaks into a run, without warning. Sprints across the street and then sidelong into an alley.

Across a sort of parking area behind some burnt-out shops. Through one of the gaping back doors, into a narrow hallway. A vulcanised rubber swing door, rotten and sticky to the touch, takes him on to the sales floor, which Gallagher crosses quickly and…

Slows. Then stops.

Because this is some sort of mini-market, with about six cramped aisles and shelves from floor to ceiling.

On the shelves: toilet brushes, eggcups in the shape of smiling chicks, tin bread bins decorated with Union Jacks, wooden mousetraps with their name (“The Little Nipper”) stamped on their sides, cheese graters with easy-grip handles, chopping boards, tea towels, novelty condiment sets, bin liners, car seat protectors, magnetic screwdrivers.

And food.

Not much of it–just one section of shelving at the end of an aisle–but the tins and packets don’t seem to have been touched. They’re still neatly arrayed by type, all the soups on one shelf, foreign cuisine on another, rice and pasta on a third. Just as some anonymous and probably long-dead retail grunt set them out on what must have seemed like an ordinary morning, in a world that nobody thought could end.

The tins are blown, every one of them. They’re full in the sun right now, as they must have been on every sunny day going back to before Gallagher was even born.

But there are packets too. He examines them first with hope, and then with excitement.

Gourmet’s Feast Chicken Curry with Rice–just add water!

Gourmet’s Feast Beef Stroganoff–just add water!

Gourmet’s Feast Mixed Meat Paella–just add water!

In other words, desiccated foods in airtight sachets.

Gallagher tears one open and takes a tentative sniff. It smells pretty bloody good, all things considered. And he really doesn’t care whether or not this stuff ever met a chicken or a cow, as long as he can keep it down.