The Cure, стр. 19

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Across the country Danny had made good progress, even with adjusting for the brightness of natural light and breathing in fresh air for the first time in forever. He stopped the motorbike in between two hills and looked down onto the valley below him. Everything was brown and dusty, not the green he remembered as a child. No plants lived here anymore and neither did any wildlife. If it had, it would have been hunted for food long ago. The skull of some kind of deer lay nearby and he got off the motorbike and picked it up trying to tap into the dead animals soul ‘Let’s not end up like you my friend,’ he said to himself and put the skull on the front of the bike, took a swig of water from his canteen, glimpsed at his map and then set off again.

Not much further on and the road was beginning to blur in front of him and he lifted the visor on his helmet to rub his eyes. No doubt about it his eyesight was progressively getting worse and he pulled to a stop on the deserted highway. Looking around he couldn’t see anything except the horizon in every direction. He stumbled from the bike and sat down cross legged on the floor dizzy. His head felt heavy and his eyes rolled back into his head as he slumped backwards against the motorbike.

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Tallulah tried Danny on the walkie talkie again ‘Tallulah to Danny, do you read? Over.’ She hung her head, waited twenty seconds and repeated the message. Nothing. ‘This isn’t good Logan,’ she looked up biting her lip. ‘What if he’s had an accident? What if the walkie talkie is broken and we can’t let him know if we fail?’

‘What if he’s riding between two canyons? What if he’s so focused on getting to the reservoir that the walkie talkie is in his backpack? What if, what if? We can’t afford to think like that Tals. These are satellite communications so they will work anywhere in the world. He’s probably just not heard it and once he stops he will contact us.’

She looked unconvinced but went back to plotting the route on the navigation system.

‘What you said back at the base, about Danny,’ she said without looking up.

‘He’s always loved you. I knew back then, and I knew he wouldn’t do anything about it, but I knew I had to. Does that make me a bad person?’

‘No, of course not. It means you took a chance and it paid off. He was my best friend, but it was always you Logan. Danny was a danger to himself and everyone around him, but you made me feel safe and wanted. You made me love you and you were the one who was there for me when I needed someone to look after me when my father didn’t. It was meant to be,’ she said reassuring him.

‘I will always be there for you Tals, always’ Logan said looking at her then back towards the road.

From nowhere a loud bang sounded on the roof of the jeep just above Logan’s head ‘Dude, you know we can hear you back here?’ Faye shouted through the window. Tallulah and Logan smiled at each other and she put her hand on his knee.

The jeep juddered sharply ‘What?’ Logan looked at the petrol gage. ‘Something isn’t right.’ The jeep coughed and spluttered to a halt.

‘What’s going on?’ said Chuck jumping out the back of the jeep followed by the others.

‘It’s the gas. The gage says we’re out, but back at the gas station we had three quarters of a tank. Plenty to get us to the prison.’ Logan walked round to the petrol tank. ’Shhhhh, argh. It’s leaking. We’ve lost a whole tank of fuel thanks to a goddamn hole.’ He grimaced and put his hand on his head, walking around trying to think. ‘Right, we patch up the tank, use the spare tanks of fuel and hope we come across some kind of vehicle in the next thirty miles or so.’

‘Logan, I hate to break this to you man, but what spare tanks,’ said Chuck, ‘there aren’t any.’

‘What? These jeeps all have two spare tanks as standard,’ he said running around the side of the jeep refusing to believe what he’d been told. ‘No, No, No.’

‘Calm down,’ Tallulah put both her hands on his shoulders.

‘Calm down? This puts us five hours outside where we need to be without transport.’

’So, we walk until we find some other way of getting there. We don’t give up,’ she replied.

Xander who had walked a good twenty feet from the group to light up a cigarette shouted over ‘She’s right you know. We didn’t come this far to give up now,’ and flicked his match onto the floor igniting a trail of petrol behind the jeep. ‘Oh Shhhh.’

The group scattered throwing themselves to the floor watching the jeep explode in front of their eyes.

Once the flames had died down, they came back together, and Logan gathered them around looking each of them down in turn. ‘Xander was right,’ he said.

‘You mean before he blew up our only means of transport and limited supplies?’ Chuck smiled.

‘We have come too far to give up. People’s lives depend on us. We’ve lived a glorified life compared to the people in these cities and now our families want them dead so we can thrive. This is our time and that should be our decision, not theirs. I say we fight. For the people to make their own choices and for us to make our own choice. There’s no going back now.’

The group picked up what food and water they could salvage along with their weapons and started the long walk in the middle of the highway.

‘Wait, what’s that in