Reitze stood there listening, sweat streaming down his face. There should have been panic, throwbacks stampeding everywhere at the sound of the shot, screaming with terror. But there was nothing, not even a protesting crow insulting him from a distant tree. It made him uneasy.
He stepped forward, rifle at the ready. God, it was heavy, made his arms ache. More blood here; he quickened his pace, had to stoop beneath the twisting rhododendron trailers, peering into every dark recess. So quiet.
A sudden noise had him whirling round, forefinger taking a trigger pressure. Just dislodged snow falling. Nothing else.
He came to a birch tree, had to rest for a moment, leaning up against it. Only then was he aware of the cigarette butt scorching his lips, leaned forward and spat it out into a patch of snow, saw how the nicotine-soaked paper was pink. Trying not to cough in case it gave his position away, a heaving of his lungs that eventually threw up stringy phlegm. He turned his head away, didn't want to see. His strength was failing fast, he had to find them soon.
A lot more blood now, they couldn't be far away. He would come to the end of the rhododendrons soon, the beasts of the chase hugging every last scrap of cover until there was no more left. Then they would be forced out into the open. Six ... eight... ten ... a dozen of them, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, using his remaining strength and sheer will power to work the bolt. Bodies falling, convulsing, lying still. That was how it would be, there could not be any other outcome. His whole body trembled with anticipation, somehow found that extra reserve of strength to keep going.
And then at last he found them, a big bunch of them, twenty at least, in a wide clearing amidst the dense bushes, men, women and children. A strewn litter of bodies, corpses!
It took some time for Reitze to realise, to accept, that they were all dead. He did not want to believe it, wanted them alive, fleeing, shrieking their terror as he cut them down one by one, wanted the satisfaction of gazing down on every one of them dead by his own hand. But the elements and the Coughing Death had beaten him to it.
No, it couldn't be, it wasn't like this. They were all alive, trying to fool him into thinking they were dead so that he would go away. But you can't fool me, you shit-pigs!
'Get up!' He screamed, brought the rifle up to his shoulder. 'I know you're not fucking well dead. D'you hear what I say? Get up and run for it. I'm giving you a chance. D'you fucking well hear?'
No movement except a piece of wet snow sliding off a branch, plopping on to the ground. Faces stared back at him, dull orbs that were filled with a hopelessness that had frozen into them. Features rigid, defiant. We're not going to run because we're dead. You're too late.
'For the last time, are you going to fucking well get up and take your chance with me?'
No answer, no movement. Reitze had the rifle barrel trained on the forehead of the nearest inert body, took another trigger pressure. Your chance has gone, you bastard!
The slug split the skull in two, exploded a shower of red bone splinters. The second shot was almost simultaneous, bowled a small child over, rolled it so that you could not see the gaping wound in its side. Firing fast now, corpses coming alive with the impact of the bullets, thrown back, jerked one way, slumping another. Reloading, shooting again, the cloud of cordite smoke thickening, doing its best to screen the awful mutilation.
Reitze paused to reload, looked for unscathed bodies and could not find any. The first throwback again, this time a chest shot, ripping out the breast bone, breaking legs, arms, disembowelling others so that the stench of human offal mingled with the smeil of powdersmoke.
Only when he was out of cartridges did he stop, dropping on to his haunches, leaning back against the birch trunk. His eyelids were heavy, wanted to close, the smoke was making them smart but he forced them to remain open. The conqueror revelled in the sight of his conquest, wanted to savour the bloody carnage. All my own work. Liar! No, I killed 'em because they were still alive, trying to fool me but 1 was too damned smart for 'em. They paid.
'I got you, you fuck bastards!' A cracked whisper that was meant to be a jubilant yell. 'I got you for what you did to us.'
And when dusk drifted into the wood Reitze was still propped up against the bole of that tree, rigid, eyes still fixed on the bloodshed in front of him. The rifle had fallen from his grasp, half-buried in a patch of snow. Anyone stumbling upon him might have been forgiven for thinking that he was still alive, that he had slaughtered mercilessly and was merely resting.
But nobody would be coming here any more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JON QUINN had wounded a hare on the steep hillside that led up to Gwyther's boundary. An almost pathetic creature lolloping in the snow, its size confusing his judgement of distance when he fired; forty-five yards had seemed no more than thirty. It had squealed once, momentarily lost its footing then regained its balance, powered itself on upwards in spile of the pellets embedded in its back legs, bright red bloodspots marking the course it took once it had gained the brow.
'Damn!' Quinn ejected the spent cartridge, slipped another into the breech. Guilt because he had wounded the creature and in all probability it would die a lingering death up in the big forest after dark when the temperature dropped below freezing. He tried to console his conscience that he was desperate for meat. Rubbish, nobody needs meat, there are ample vegetables stored in the big barn. All the same, he had to follow it and make every possible attempt to alleviate its suffering.
He was sweating hard, his shirt beneath his windcheater sticking to his skin. There was the danger that it might result in a chill. He could not afford to be ill; survival was now a full-time occupation.
He reached the horizon, saw that the footmarks and bloodstains headed across in the direction of the forest. He would have to follow them. He ...
Suddenly he heard the helicopter, its engine powering it into take-off somewhere close by. The noise hit him like a physical blow, froze him into immobility. Hide! There's nowhere to hide. Run before they see you. Open country, he would not make it to the forest in time.
The helicopter was visible now, flying low, coming towards him. Oh Christ, they've seen me, they'll take me back with then to enforced civilisation. The hills and woods are throwback territory, everybody else has to get out. Emergency regulations, martial law. His eyes were fixed on the approaching machine, watching it grow bigger every second, nearer and nearer . . .
And then, without warning, it stopped as though it had run into an invisible barrier. For a second or two it appeared to hover, unbelievably still as though it defied Newton's Law. Then dropped vertically.
Jon Quinn braced himself, felt the vibration of the crash, screamed his horror as he saw the chopper bounce, the vanes snap like bamboo canes, overturning, rolling. Breaking up.
It bounced again off a rock beneath the snow, seemed to split apart, strewing its wreckage as it careered down the steep slope. Something was thrown from it, a mangled bloodied body, blood jetting from a ragged neck stump where it had been decapitated, spraying crimson like a garden sprinkler in summer, a deep snowdrift finally swallowing it up.
Finally there was nothing left to roll any further. A blinding explosion as the fuel tank ignited, a brief funeral pyre that quickly extinguished itself in the frozen wilderness. Less than half a minute and it was all over.
Jon Quinn did not want to go and look. His logic screamed at him that there could be no survivors but his conscience yelled even louder that it was his duty to check. He was still holding the shotgun; euthanasia was his only remedy if anybody still lived, for he could offer neither medical attention nor hope. Just mercy.