The Furies by Keith Roberts

Author:Keith Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Dave told me next morning what had happened. He was still shaken. Apparently they’d driven out to Westrincham, following the flying wasps as usual, only to find the place a charnel house. There had been no evacuation, either by humans or insects. There had been a wholesale massacre though, the bodies were still piled in the streets. The wasps had forced the crew to go through the usual routine of loading the lorry; fortunately they’d managed to find a relatively unaffected part of the town for that. They’d been on the point of heading back when they heard a dog barking. The Furies had seemed unduly excited by the noise. One of them zoomed off to investigate and Len followed up with the diesel. Dave said they had had some vague idea of bringing the animal back to camp but by the time they reached it they were too late. They swung right following the direction the wasp had taken and saw the dog in the road a hundred yards or so ahead. It was already twitching from a sting wound; the Fury was grounded beside it watching with the usual disinterest. Nearby was a small tobacconist shop. The window was smashed, the door stood ajar. It was possible the dog had run from there. Dave got down from the cab. He saw smudges of dried blood on the doorframe and the path. He went inside. There were several corpses lying around, some of them children. He didn’t describe that part too closely. He thought he heard a noise from an inner room. That was how he found the girl.

He said she was conscious when he went in. At first he didn’t see her; the place was dark after the sunlight in the street and she was huddled in a corner, crouched in a mess of blood and urine. His eyes hardened again at the memory. “What a ruddy way to go,” he said bitterly. “What a state to be in, I couldn’t leave her like that. I’m no age,” he added, inconsequentially. “Never seen anything like that before. I couldn’t leave her like that…”

Outside in the road the Furies were booming impatiently. He’d tried to talk to the girl but he hadn’t been able to make her understand. She was armed with a kitchen knife, he had to take it away from her before he could lift her. He carried her out, hardly knowing what he was doing. On his way back to the truck the wasps dived at him repeatedly, trying to make him drop her. “I just kept walking,” he said. “I was sick of the whole bloody business. I didn’t expect to make it for a minute. I was hoping when they did me in it’d be quick.” For some reason he’d got away with his defiance. After a time the Furies had seemed to accept the state of affairs and lose interest in it. He carried the girl back in the cab, assailed most of the way by the complaints of Harry West.

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