Jackie slept on the sofa that night, lay and listened to the wind howling, buffeting the cottage, driving the snow against the walls, building up deep drifts. And hour after hour Rod Savage lay and coughed. She heard him turning restlessly in his bed directly above the tiny living-room, remembered that woman who had had to be carried, and the body in the snow.
She dozed uneasily. Tonight her lover did not come; she called out for him, willed him to join her, but he never came. Strange dreams of a land where everybody except herself was dead, the hills and forests littered with bodies where the fevered coughing illness had taken its toll.
Only she remained, alone in a dead hell, wanting to die but living, forced to walk the silent land in search of a will-o'-the-wisp that no longer came to taunt her. A land of cold and hunger and thirst.
When finally she awoke she was not sure whether it was light or not, went to the window and rubbed a patch in the condensation. A virgin white curtain of snow covered the outside of the glass pane. She turned back in despair, wondered if she could find sticks and paper with which to light a fire.
The wind had dropped. Suddenly she was aware of the total stillness, the cloying silence. And with it came a feeling bordering on panic. Rod Savage was no longer turning restlessly in his bed upstairs and coughing incessantly. No sound came from above.
And that was when Jackie's dream came back to her, of a land where everybody except herself was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SYLVIA HAD found the village within an hour or so of leaving the cottage, had come upon it suddenly in the thick hill-fog. She could have drawn back, fled before the occupants caught sight of her. But she didn't.
She walked slowly, dazedly into the settlement. The snow was falling steadily, a refreshing wind threatening to whip it into a blizzard. A strange atmosphere which she sensed immediately, a kind of bustle of activity which had suddenly come to a stop. Loaded litters, the snow already beginning to cover them with a white film, a cluster of men who eyed her with a mixture of curiosity and apathy. We were about to leave but we've changed our minds. Who are you and what are you doing here?
They were all packed up and ready to go. Where to? Sylvia came to a halt before the group, eyed them question-ingly, felt she had to say something. They would not understand, but it didn't matter. Thinking, talking, was becoming increasingly difficult, her brain fogged and sluggish.
'My name's Sylvia. My husband's dead.' Grief that had been threatening like thunderheads on the horizon suddenly hit her. Unrestricted sobs. One of them pointed to the nearest dwelling-place. Go in there, woman, out of the cold.
She walked shakily towards it, paused in the entrance. The interior was dark, had a sharp unpleasant odour about it. She waited for her vision to adjust to the gloom, saw through a liquid misty flood, distorted shapes; somebody lay on a bed in the corner, not moving. A woman was stretched out on some hides by the wall, and it was quite obvious that she was dead. A fit of uncontrollable coughing attracted her attention and she turned her head and made out a boy of perhaps ten years of age squatting beyond the dying embers of the fire. Tiny rivulets of blood trickled down his chin. He saw her but his expression did not register surprise, just acceptance.
'You're all ill.' She spoke aloud. 'You need help, a doctor.' Now that was a silly thing to say because there weren't any doctors left. They were all out there, any one of these menfolk might have been a doctor once. Before all this. What was a doctor? She could not really remember; somebody who helped you, perhaps.
She stood just inside the open doorway, looked back outside. Several more people were emerging from the other huts bearing litters on which lay prone bodies wrapped in animal hides, scarcely seeming able to lift the weight of them. A conference. They were pointing, arguing. Sylvia did not need an interpreter to understand what they were saying.
We must go even though we are ill and dying. The snow is here, winter is upon us. If we stay here we shall starve. Go now whilst there is still a little time left.
A woman appeared from somewhere, came into the hut and with some difficulty lifted up the sick boy. He began to cry, coughed some more blood. Sylvia made as if to help but some inhibition checked her. She was a stranger here, an intruder in-a different way of life; they might resent her interference. She felt self-conscious.
The child was taken out, room made for him on one of the stretchers alongside the still form of a red-headed man who might already have been dead. They were hurrying now, seeming to have to force their limbs into jerky movements. Sylvia was ignored, perhaps they had forgotten her. Very soon they would all be gone and she would be left here in this deserted place of death.
Panic, almost running out to them, the snow coming faster now. For God's sake don't go without me, don't leave me here. Please! I'm one of you now—look at me!
The litter on to which they had just placed the boy was lowered back on to the ground, two of them were straining to lift the man off. He was dead, there was no point in taking him with them. They dragged him free, laid him down in the snow. You did not bury your dead, you left them for the wild dogs and foxes.
'I want to go with you,' Sylvia cried, clutched at one of them. Til walk, I promise I won't be a nuisance, but don't leave me behind!' A flash of lucid speech and then it was gone again and words were meaningless to her.
They looked at one another, grunted. Arguing again. They had no room for passengers, anybody who went on the trek had a part to play. You must help to carry the sick, woman. And if you fail then you will be abandoned. Nobody will help you.
Sylvia took the handles of the stretcher, the boy's mother going in front. Between them they could manage now that the weight of the adult corpse had been removed. A slow procession, the men in front, the women bringing up the rear.
The snow eased off a little and away to her right Sylvia saw and recognised the outline of the Quinn smallholding, like a miniature toy farm set out on an uneven white sheet. One brief wave of nostalgia but she pushed it forcibly away. Jon was nothing to her, never had been, only somebody to fill a gap while Eric was away. A lump caught in her throat. Poor Eric, this didn't have to happen to him. But it had. If only she hadn't been one of the unlucky survivors. But she would not survive long now, none of them would. Eric? Who was Eric? Her mind slipped again, became a vacuum.
The descent was steep and slippery. Once the woman in front lost her footing and somehow Sylvia managed to prevent the stretcher from tipping over, steadied it down on to the snow. The hide blankets slid to one side and she saw the boy. Oh God, his body shook with the fever, he was delirious, mouthing meaningless animal noises. His bright eyes saw her, weak arms tried to reach out for her but they had not the strength; he thought she was his mother.
Sylvia helped the distraught woman wrap him up again and then they had to hurry to catch up with the others. Once they reached the floor of the narrow valley their pace was slowed, the snow much deeper here, wading up to their thighs.
Sylvia wished she could ask them where they were going. There was a definite purposefulness about their route, an urgency driving them on, keeping them going when their physical strength was failing. She glanced up at the sky, judged that it was well into the afternoon, the sun a fiery red ball now that the clouds had dispersed. Tonight there would be a hard frost.
They paused for a spell and she was handed some strips of dried meat, bit on it hungrily but had difficulty in chewing it. It had a smoky flavour where it had been dried over a smouldering fire. Revolting, but she knew she had to eat it. Then, wearily, they set off again.