Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

Sanders shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “Moved on somewhere better? It’s not our problem. Just stay close to the trucks and keep an eye out for trouble, all right?”

Sanders and his colleague checked their weapons and left, leaving me with Barker and five soldiers whose idea of staying alert turned out to be lighting up and playing cards. Barker was not invited to join them.

“They don’t trust me,” he explained.

“Well I need to pee, and I trust you not to peek, so that’s something, eh?” I said, and I linked my arm through his and led him towards Woolies in search of privacy.

“Ooh,” said Barker as we approached the ruined store. “I wonder if they still have any Stephen Kings.”

We heard a jeer from behind us.

“Great,” moaned Barker. “Now they think we’re shagging.”

Woolies had been comprehensively looted, and there was crap all over the place. Literally — someone had smeared their own shit on the windows.

“Euw, that’s gross,” I said, looking around for a quiet spot. “I’m going over there.” I pointed to a brick flower bed that housed a large ugly bush. Barker nodded and walked into the shop while I scurried behind the bush.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially morbid, I wonder what my last words might be. I picture myself lying in some grand four-poster bed, surrounded by fat, happy grandchildren as I fade away, elegant to the last, imparting pearls of wisdom gleaned from a long, fulfilling life. I bet that Barker, if he ever gave it a second’s thought, never considered “great, now they think we’re shagging,” as particularly likely or desirable last words.

But we don’t get to choose, do we?

As I started to unbuckle my belt I heard a tiny metallic ‘sprang’ and a soft grunt. I assumed Barker had trodden on a toy car or something, and I sighed gratefully as I emptied my bladder.

When I emerged a minute later I went towards the shattered doors of Woolies and peered into the gloom.

“Find anything good?” I shouted.

No reply.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the shop interior and it became clear why that was.

The metallic twang had been poor old Barker stepping on a tripwire. The grunt, the only sound he’d managed to make as the six foot long spring-loaded metal spike had leapt free of its housing and swung down from the ceiling, skewering him and lifting him off his feet. And there he remained, dangling in mid-air, a huge sharpened girder sticking out of his back, blood everywhere.

Dammit, I liked him.

I staggered back with an involuntary scream and the next thing I knew someone slammed into my back, shoving me hard up against the store window, pushing my right arm up behind my back, and grazing my stitched cheek on a streak of hard, dried shit.

“You fucking do, cunt?” yelled a squaddie in my ear.

It would have been impossible to reply with my face pressed against the glass, so I didn’t even try to respond.

“Easy, Col,” said one of his mates. “It’s a booby trap.”

Col wasn’t inclined to let me go, though, and he kept me pinned there for another few seconds, pressed up against me. He let me go by pushing himself away from me with his groin, so I could feel his erection, snorting his disgust as he did so.

The wise thing to do would have been to let it go. But I turned like a flash and slapped him as hard as I could.

He snarled and raised his hand to hit me, but his mate intervened, grabbing his wrist and staring him down.

“Fuck’s sake, Col, get a grip,” he said. My assailant gave a sick laugh, pulled his arm free and walked away backwards, giving me the evil eye.

“Thanks,” I said as I spat on my sleeve and wiped the shit and blood off my face.

“Shut the fuck up,” replied my rescuer, “and get back in the fucking truck before I shoot you myself. And don’t even think of doing a runner.”

Leaving the squaddies to their grim task I stepped away and walked back to the trucks. Before stepping out into the road I instinctively looked left and right for oncoming traffic, then paused, realised what I’d done, and laughed at my own stupidity. Then something registered, and I looked right again.

At the far end of the street stood a figure. I think it was a man but it was hard to be sure because they were dressed in a bright yellow hazmat suit, their glass visor glinting in the sun, hiding their face. The figure just stood there looking at us, seemingly content just to watch.

I looked back at the soldiers. Two of them had taken up positions in cover and were scanning the opposite buildings. I was pleased to notice that Col had chosen the bush to hide behind, which meant he was kneeling in my piss. Ha. The other three were inside the shop attempting to pull Barker down. None of them had seen our visitor. I looked back and now there were two of them, both in the bright yellow suits. And I could see that they both carried shotguns.

“Um, guys,” I said quietly, but they didn’t hear me. Snatches of their conversation floated across to where I stood.

“No, not that arm, dipshit…”

“Jesus, now I’m covered in guts…”

“Oi, careful I just washed this bloody uniform…”

I spoke more clearly. “Guys, we have company.”

The nearest man on watch heard me and called the others. They dropped what they were doing and I heard Barker hit the floor with a thud. Weapons raised, they scattered to positions of cover and vantage, all the while keeping their eyes on our two — no, three, now — visitors.

I turned to see where the soldiers were taking up positions, about to move myself, and over their shoulders I saw four more of the yellow-clad figures standing motionless outside a ruined hardware store at the other end of the road. Before I could shout a warning, one of them raised a megaphone to his visor and a tinny voice echoed up the wrecked street.

“You shall be cleansed,” he said flatly, his voice altered by a distorter that made him sound like a Dalek. “All shall be cleansed.”

“Ah shit, cleaners,” yelled the squaddie nearest to me. “Masks!”

“They’re in the bloody trucks,” yelled someone else.

Then there was a dull pop, I heard something metal hit the tarmac, and then a soft hiss.

There was a second’s silence before I heard Col shout “gas!” and then I ran like hell for the truck where Rowles and Caroline were hiding. A cloud of thick yellow smoke billowed out from the area where the soldiers had taken up positions. I heard screams and then indiscriminate gunfire. A burst of rounds whipped past my head, punching holes in the nearest truck’s canvas covering.

The hazmat guys just remained where they were.

Staying just ahead of the drifting cloud, I reached the truck and looked inside. Empty. They must have slipped away. No time to look any closer, the thick yellow cloud was nearly at me. I ran for the opposite side of the road and straight through the shattered doors of a branch of Lloyd’s Bank. I was so panicked that it was only once I was inside that it occurred to me to look for tripwires. And there one was, about a centimetre from my right toe. Unfortunately I was still moving and my left foot was just about to hit the thin metal strip. I dived forward, clipping the wire as I did so. I hit the damp, mouldy carpet hard and heard the clang of something big and metal above my head. I rolled on to my back and saw enormous metal jaws, cut from what looked like car bonnets. It was a sort of huge, upside down mantrap and it would have taken my head clean off.

“They really don’t like giving overdrafts,” said a boy’s voice to my right.

“You armed?” I asked.

“Natch,” said a girl’s voice to my left.

“Spare?”

“Catch.”