Give it a couple of hours, and it will all make sense. You’ll regret buying into the hysteria.
But something inside her told her she wouldn’t. She could overprepare and look like an idiot when the whole thing turned out to be a mistake, or she could underprepare and risk regretting it later. The consequences of one were so much worse than the other.
As she slammed the last two jugs of water into the car’s boot, a speck of water hit her cheek. It was cold in the way that recently melted snow felt. The grey sky was turning thunderous.
Play it safe, Bethany’s voice whispered. Put the snow tyres on.
She’d gotten pretty efficient at changing the tyres since moving to her cottage. Clare hauled them out of the shed and set about the task in something that looked like a frenzy. Dirt scuffed over her clothes, but she barely noticed.
By the time she’d fastened the final tyre, snow was starting to fall in earnest. It had taken precious minutes, but it was better than becoming stranded in the middle of nowhere. She ran through a mental checklist. Clothes. Food. Water. Beth would provide the shelter. She just had to pick up Marnie on the way.
She slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The windshield wipers made a rhythmic thumping noise as they fought to keep her front window clear. They were on the fastest setting, but it wasn’t helping much.
The snowstorm had risen in what felt like no time at all. Even with the snow tyres, the car was barely coping. Clare coaxed it along as quickly as she dared in the near-zero visibility.
She’d tried listening to the news reports on the radio until the distortion made them impossible to hear. No one could agree on what was happening. The quiet zones were spreading with new ones appearing every minute. Anyone who was brave or foolish enough to go into them wasn’t heard from again. A small handful of people were reported to have stumbled out of the affected areas, but they were delirious and incoherent. Beth said there was footage of a man being carried into a hospital by people in hazmat suits. He’d been writhing and screaming words that made no sense. Shortly after that footage was broadcast, the hospital’s power had died and the people inside had stopped answering calls. It was declared a new quiet zone.
The mobile in Clare’s cup holder crackled, and Beth’s voice came through, thin and broken. “It’s too danger—s. Turn ba—”
“It’s going to be okay.” Clare prayed she was right. “I’m picking up Aunt Marnie. I’ll be there before noon as long as none of the roads are closed. We’ll phone you and make a new plan then.”
Some people on the radio had claimed the stillness event was some kind of chemical warfare mixed with electromagnetic pulses. The attacks seemed centred on the largest cities. The few brave souls who lived on the edges of the quiet zones and refused to be evacuated shared videos of explosions and flashing lights. No airborne missiles or foreign planes had been detected, though. Most of the experts seemed to agree that it wasn’t active bombing. But the most bizarre thing was that no one claimed responsibility. Every country capable of an attack on such a large scale had been affected.
Some people said it was end times, that the good were being sifted from the sinful. They said those who didn’t believe would be left to suffer on earth. Others thought it was an alien invasion. Rumours were rife in laymen’s circles. Beth had been repeating some of the tweets to Clare over the phone before the social media sites had gone down.
New information still dribbled in, but it was becoming harder and harder to verify as communication networks failed. Many claimed the military had been mobilised, but no one seemed to know against what.
The emergency response lines were begging people not to call them unless there was a life-threatening injury. Their lines had been swamped, and several of their operating centres had been swallowed by the quiet zones. The ones still operating urgently repeated that they were prioritising life-and-death situations and were powerless to look for lost family and friends in the uncontactable areas. They weren’t even responding to the mass lootings or rioting that was spreading through the remaining cities.
A dark, hulking shape emerged from the white on the side of the road, and Clare squinted as she tried to make it out. It was only when she was nearly beside it that she realised she was looking at two cars, parked end to end, with their doors open.
“Dangerous—” The phone’s static was growing worse. “Don’t—as—safe!”
Clare slowed to a crawl as she passed the cars. They were empty. The internal lights created a soft glow over the flecks of white and the children’s toys bundled into one of the rear seats.
She pressed down on the accelerator to get back up to speed. The steady thd thd thd of the windshield wipers matched her heart rate. The phone’s crackles no longer played in the background.
Clare reached for her mobile blindly, not prepared to take her eyes off the road, and tried redialling. It refused to place the call.
“Come on,” Clare whispered. She had a terrible mental image of Beth’s suburb being swallowed and turned into a quiet zone. Beth was smart. She would have run to her bunker at the first sign of danger. More likely, though, the phone lines had been overwhelmed, and the telecommunications networks had gone down.
She, Bethany, and Marnie should be safe, at least for a little while longer. The attacks—if that really was what they were—seemed to have been concentrated on cities and heavily populated areas. Clare’s small family all lived on remote properties. There were no houses near Banksy Forest. They should still have time.
Something darted past the car, moving low to the ground. Clare reflexively twisted the steering wheel and barely managed to correct her course before the car began to spin. She pressed a hand to her thundering heart.
What was that? A fox?
She didn’t have the luxury of time to focus on it. Shadows appeared in the distance, and Clare let out a sigh as she recognised the formation. She’d reached the edge of the Banksy Forest. And that meant safety… from the storm, at least.
As her car coasted into the trees, Clare took a fortifying breath. We can do this. As long as the storm lets up before the roads are too choked. As long as there are no accidents blocking the streets. We can do this.
She reached for the phone again but stopped before her fingers touched the metal. A strange noise surrounded her car. It sounded like the whirr of helicopter blades. Clare leaned close to the windshield and tried to look up, but she couldn’t see anything through the forest’s canopy.
Maybe that’s the military response. Though what they’re doing in this part of the country, I don’t know.
Something darted across the road. Clare reflexively hit the brakes and grunted as the seat belt bit into her. She rocked back into her seat, breathing quickly, her heart galloping.
That wasn’t a wolf. Or any other kind of animal.
She could have sworn the shape had been human. But he hadn’t looked like any man she’d seen before. Wispy yellow hair hung to his bony shoulders, which jutted out strangely. His torn shirt had hung around his waist. And he’d been running on all fours.