Even while the enemy advances, people are writing history texts about the Day of the Vesps. They’re recording events that happened in Eastern Europe, the rapid spread across the continent, the vesps’ limited incursions into Asia and North Africa, the efforts made and battles lost. They are charting world reaction to the tragedy, including the USA shutting all sea and land borders, Australasia isolating itself from the world stage, and the military skirmishes in the Far East between Japan, China, and North and South Korea. Interviews are being collated, opinions sought, and books written, even while vesps occupy airspace above the writers’ retreats, and danger still stalks the streets. And I find this encouraging. Looking ahead in this manner is testament to the human spirit. It speaks of a belief in survival, and on this dark day, such belief is vital. So I say to these historians… keep writing. You are already creating our brave new world.
Prime Minister’s Address to the Nation (audio only), 11 a.m., Saturday, 19 November 2016
“I can prepare you to live in silence,” I said. “Listen.”
We were all there, sitting on the ground close to the overturned Land Rover so that Glenn could hear too. We’d made a renewed effort to free him, but to no avail. He groaned and hissed in pain whenever we touched the steering wheel, and trying to push him out sideways had made him scream in agony. I had seen my family’s reaction, and it made me glad I couldn’t hear.
I’d suggested going across the hillside towards the distant roadblock and seeking help. But Mum told me that there was still intermittent gunfire coming from that direction, and several new fires had sprung up further along the line of stationary traffic. She and Dad feared that if we made ourselves known it would bring trouble, not help.
“It doesn’t feel right,” I said. “To see you, know you’re with me, but to not hear your voices. It’s unnatural. It’s wrong. But you can get used to it.” Lynne sat on a small rock with Jude standing beside her, arm around her shoulder and leaning in. Mum and Dad knelt close to the Land Rover. Dad was squatting down holding Glenn’s hand. I couldn’t see if Glenn was even aware, didn’t know if he could hear. Mum had told me that he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
Otis was sitting by my side, panting softly, pupils dilated with excitement. I wished he could understand my words as well because I worried about him. His zest for life, his excitability. His barking.
“You feel cut off from the world. Like a wall has gone up, and things are moving on without you. It was like that for me to begin with. But we all have an advantage that most people won’t have—we can sign. Lynne, you’re not as good as the rest of us, but you’ve got to know a lot of our sign language, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I—” she began, but I cut her off.
“Sign it,” I signed.
Lynne smiled, nodded, and very carefully and purposefully started signing. “It takes me a little time to understand. But I get there in the end.”
“So we won’t be cut off from each other,” I said. “Perhaps in the Jeep we’ll be able to whisper. But even that might be dangerous. So to begin with, when they get here, I think we should stay silent. Completely. Until we know more about them.”
Mum waved to get my attention and then spoke. “We’ll all face each other,” she said. “So that none of us feels alone.”
I smiled. Mum knew me so well, and understood why I hated travelling in the car. The rest of my family would be feeling like that soon. Seeing each other’s faces would give us all strength, the means to communicate, and the confidence to do so in silence.
Dad leaned forward, low down, and looked in at Glenn. He said something to him, then looked up and repeated what he’d said for my benefit. “I told him we’ll be very close.”
I nodded. Otis whined and I ruffled his neck. Dad looked at the dog.
“What if we need to go toilet?” Jude asked.
“We’ll go now,” I said. “And if we need to go in the Jeep, it’ll have to be in the boot.”
“It’ll stink!” Jude said, with the familiar fascinated disgust that only young boys can muster.
“Then you’ll be used to it,” I said, grinning at him. He signed something rude that nobody else saw.
“We’ll have one of the shotguns,” Mum said. “Glenn will keep the other one with him.”
“But we can’t use them,” I said. The whole idea of guns was shocking to me, and when I blinked the twin, dark barrels of the shotgun I’d faced seemed to float before my eyes. The concussion of the blast, the man’s shocked expression, the sight of his wife’s shattered ankle and dragging, blood-smeared foot was horrifying.
“For later,” Mum said. “After it’s safe to leave the Jeep. Just for protection.”
There was so much we didn’t know about after, and I felt eyes and attention on me. They wanted me to say more—I’d been following the news, taking accounts, building my own picture of what was happening, including rumours and speculation about the nature of the vesps. But I knew little more than anyone else.
“People are surviving,” I said. “Shut away in basements or sealed buildings. Keeping quiet and still. But I don’t think all the vesps move on. Infants hatch and swarm, but the ones who lay eggs hang around.”
“Where do they lay their eggs?” Jude asked.
“In their prey,” I said.
“What, in people?”
I didn’t reply. No one else spoke.
“In their eyes and their mouths?”
Lynne muttered something, and Jude’s eyes went wide as he glanced past Dad at Glenn.
We all fell silent.
A cool breeze drifted across the hillside carrying the stench of smoke. I saw my family glance up and past me as one, and guessed there had been more gunfire. I had no desire to turn around and look. I’m going to be seeing enough as it is, I thought, and a chill went through me, deeper and colder than the wind breathing across the barren hills.
Mum stood. “We should get ready,” she signed. “Let’s make sure we’ve thought of everything.”
How can we think of everything when we don’t know anything? I thought. But I took a deep breath and tried to steady my nerves. Now was not the time to start panicking.
Now was the time to be silent.
* * *
Dad went to move the Jeep close beside the upturned Land Rover, but I saw him and Glenn talking heatedly. I couldn’t make out anything Dad said, but it resolved with him leaving the Jeep where it was and stalking to the back of the ruined vehicle.
In case he makes a noise, I thought. Glenn doesn’t want to put us in danger if he starts shouting in pain. I wanted to kneel down and talk to him, but knew how awkward it would be. He could only sign a few basic phrases, and with his bloodied face and swollen lips, I’d have great difficulty reading him. It would be a one-way conversation, and I knew how awkward those were.
So I busied myself getting the Jeep ready instead. We sorted through the bags in the rear of the Land Rover and pulled out the supplies that hadn’t been spoiled by the leaking fuel: tinned food, a few packets of dried pasta, and some cans of lemonade and bottled water. Most of the clothing was stinking and unusable, but Mum scattered a couple of boxes of shotgun shells on a flat rock to dry. She checked over both weapons thoroughly, then loaded one and knelt close beside Glenn. She was there for some time, and when she stood and walked away she left the weapon behind.
It disappeared through the smashed window as Glenn pulled it inside.
I raised an eyebrow at Mum, and she signed, “My grandfather took me shooting a few times when I was your age. You’ve got an action-mum.”
Lynne wiped the outside of the Jeep’s windows so that we had a clear view. Dad walked across the slope a little, scouting the way ahead and down for when the time came to leave.
If the time ever comes when we can risk starting the engine, I thought. The future was a stark, dark place, shaded by unknowns and tainted by fear.
At two o’clock that afternoon the fear came home to roost.
* * *
“Vesps,” I whispered. “Mum, Dad… vesps!” I pointed across the hillside in the direction of the distant, traffic-clogged road. Smoke still rose from several burning vehicles, and the military roadblock remained in place. I squinted, wondering if I was wrong and had simply imagined the worst when I saw a cloud of specks in the sky. But then I saw movement on the ground, starting at the top of the slope where the road appeared over the hillside, and panic settled over the land.
People were running. They flowed downhill past parked vehicles and the hedges lining the road, every colour of clothing, heads bobbing, individual shapes falling and rising again to continue their flight. Maybe they’re screaming, I thought, hoping against hope that they were not.
In the air above and around them the pale shapes flew. They flitted and swirled, spiralling above the road, dropping and rising again. People tripped and were immediately smothered in vesps. Some fled into the fields, leaving their cars and loved ones behind. The creatures darted after them, swerving back and forth before closing in and landing on their targets.
The flicker of gunfire—muzzle flashes, coughing smoke—erupted from among the military vehicles, and a cloud of creatures quickly converged on the roadblock.
I’m seeing people die, I thought, and horror gripped me, crippling, paralysing, shattering.
I sensed movement beside me and instinctively ducked, glancing that way with a hand held up to ward off danger. Dad was reaching for me. He held my hand and pulled me gently towards the Jeep.
Mum, Jude and Lynne were already inside. As Dad climbed in behind them, I checked for Otis.
He was standing halfway between the Jeep and the rolled Land Rover, staring uphill past the Jeep with his hackles bristling, teeth bared.
“Otis,” I whispered, tapping my leg gently as I always did when I wanted him to come to me. He ignored me. I turned to see what he was growling at.
Pale shapes had appeared above the hilltop and were drifting down towards us, veering back and forth across the landscape. “Otis!” I whispered, harsher, and the dog leaped past me into the Jeep. I followed into the back seat, pulling the door almost closed behind me, both hands on the handle, unsure whether or not to tug it. Lynne reached across and hauled the door closed. I felt the impact and my whole family froze.
Then we turned as one and looked back at the Land Rover.
It was difficult to see Glenn from this angle. I could just see his head and arm, the stark, dark shape of the shotgun lying beside him, and the puddle of blood beneath him on the upturned ceiling. He was motionless. I hoped because he knew what was happening.
Still looking outside, I reached over and grabbed someone’s hand. I wasn’t sure whose it was. Mum and Dad were in the front seats; me, Jude and Lynne were in the back, and Otis had jumped over into the boot, already used to travelling there.
The vesps came. There were not as many as I had expected. Several flew by on the left a couple of metres above the ground, circling the Jeep and Land Rover and then moving on.
They must have echolocation, like bats, I thought, and it had never occurred to me before. If they were blind and hunted by sound, they must also have a means to navigate, feel where they were going.
And they were horrible. The size of large kittens, leathery wings perhaps twice as long as their bodies, skins or hides a pale, sickly, slick yellow, flowing tails like several split tentacles, the nubs of legs on their lower bodies, and teeth. I saw the teeth even as they flew by, because they were bared. Small but glinting, their lips were drawn back like folds of skin, mouths exposed and ready to attack, eat. And what was worst about them was their unnaturalness. They simply were not meant to be. They were like a child’s drawing of a monster given life, all whimsy stripped away, only horror and ugliness left behind. They reminded me of deep-sea fish, blind and ugly. I had always appreciated nature for what it really was; if we were watching a natural history programme where lions caught a zebra and Mum made some comment about the poor creature, I would say that the lions had to live. But these things…
They had shattered the natural balance. A mutation. A plague.
A vesp whispered along the side of the Jeep, larger than the others. Perhaps the first few I’d seen had been infants, but this was clearly an adult. Its trailing wing left a moist smear across the windows, and Otis bared his teeth.
I touched his head and whispered, very softly, “Otis, no.” I could feel the rumble of a growl beneath my hand, and I glanced around at the others.
They stared, wide-eyed and terrified. Jude was crying, pushed into the gap between front seats so that Mum could sling an arm around him. My parents had kept their promise and they were turned in their seats, looking back so that we could all see each other. Lynne sat upright against the opposite door, jaw clenching and unclenching. She looked strong. I’d always thought of her that way, and now her eyes were cool, expression determined.
Mum held the shotgun pointing upwards.
Dad was looking past me at the dog, and when he caught my eye he mouthed, “Keep him quiet!”
I reached over into the boot and gently, slowly, hugged Otis to me. He resisted at first, then leaned into my embrace. I felt the growl rumbling deep within him, but his teeth were no longer bared.
Something hit the Jeep. I felt the impact and glanced up in time to see the slick smears on the back window. Three or four more vesps landed there, those strange tentacles on their abdomens squirming for purchase against the glass. Then they fell and flew away.
It was like the beginning of a snowstorm. Across the hillside the vesps drifted down from uphill, gliding back and forth, dodging rocky outcroppings and trees, circling in some places if they found something interesting and then moving on again. I saw some catching birds in flight, suddenly mimicking the singing birds’ flight patterns before plucking them from the air. Another dropped down onto something just out of sight, and several other vesps zeroed in on the struggle.
There were only scattered groups at first, then over the space of a couple of minutes more and more came.
One of them drifted close and gently struck the window close to Otis’s nose.
The dog started barking. “Otis, no, Otis, no!” I whispered, but it was too late, and it was as if Otis had become senseless to everything but the vesps. He nudged forward between barks, butting the glass and the creature that clung to the other side. Its wings flapped rapidly, tentacles slicking down the window before finding some purchase below. Then its body seemed to tighten and flex as muscles held it taut, and the animal’s teeth scratched at the glass, scoring it deeply. Other vesps came.
Dad grabbed my shoulder and pulled me around. “Make him stop!” he said, and I saw how scared everyone was. Jude had crawled into Mum’s front seat, and Lynne sat back with her hands to her mouth. Behind her, three vesps struck her window and started scraping.
I pulled Otis towards me and leaned into the back seat, pressing my mouth to his ear and saying, “Otis, no!” I injected as much command as I could into my voice.
The dog pulled away and jumped at the rear window where several vesps were now attached. He bounced from the glass and sprawled on the floor, shaking his head and spraying slobber. Then he crouched and started barking again, jumping in circles.
I could just see past the creatures assaulting the Jeep, and across the hillside others were streaking towards us. They must release a signal, like bees, I thought.
Someone started hitting me. I twisted awkwardly in my seat to see Jude reaching over to strike at me, tears streaking his face, and he said, “Make him stop!” He must have shouted because Dad pulled him back, hand across his mouth and calming words ready.
“Otis, please!” I said. But the dog was both excited and terrified. His hackles were raised, his eyes dilated, and he leaped at the windows where vesps were attached. They scraped and scored with their ugly teeth, and in several places the glass was obscured by deep scratches. I could not imagine anything chewing their way into a car. It was impossible, wasn’t it? But in time, I guessed anything was possible.
It depended on how long they stayed. And how long they would remember the noise, when and if I eventually made Otis stop.
I tried to catch his collar and drag him to me. He was a big dog, strong, and it was only when Lynne leaned over and helped that we managed to hold him against the rear of the back seat. I tried closing his mouth with my right hand, but he twisted his head away and barked again. I reached again and he snapped at me. He missed. But I sat back on my heels, shocked, saddened. Otis had never, ever gone for me before.
More vesps landed, thudding against the bodywork and windows. There were so many now that the interior of the Jeep had grown darker, sunlight jittering and dancing between bodies as they moved across the glass. I felt like screaming. Jude did too, I could see it in his eyes. It must have been even worse with the sound of the beasts hitting the vehicle, the screech of teeth on glass, and Otis barking us towards doom.
Something happened. I felt the tension in the Jeep shift. Everyone turned their heads as one to look downhill at the Land Rover, and several vesps dropped from the windows and darted that way. The glass was smeared with their secretions and clouded where they’d been scratching with their teeth, but it was clear that the Land Rover had now become a newer, more attractive target.
“What happened?” I whispered. There were only a few vesps left on the Jeep now, and Otis stood panting, no longer barking.
“Glenn,” Lynne mouthed to me, and then I knew.
“Oh, no,” I whispered. Mum and Dad were pressed to the windscreen, breath held so that they didn’t mist the glass. Past them, I could see vesps converging on the Land Rover from all directions. Many of them landed on the upturned chassis and crawled across it, their movements awkward. It seemed they only had grace in the air. Others dropped to the ground close by and hobbled forwards, while some flew straight into the vehicle’s interior through the smashed windows.
The shattered driver’s window faced uphill, and in moments it was a squirming, pale yellow mass of vesps, seemingly struggling against each other to reach what lay inside.
A mess of bloodied parts and smoke blasted outward, smoking flesh pattering across the grass. But the gap made in the crowd of vesps soon filled again.
“What did he do?” I whispered.
“Shotgun,” Mum signed. “Now he’s shouting.”
“Still?” But no one answered that. We all watched. Lynne attempted to reach forward and cover Jude’s eyes, but he shook her off and she did not try again.
I was shivering. The more I tried not to imagine what was happening to Glenn, the more I saw.
Dad turned away but I did not catch his eye, could not. I looked past my family at what was happening to our friend. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he had done it for us. He’d seen and heard what was happening, and although he perhaps already believed himself doomed, it didn’t make the decision he had made any less awful.
“He killed himself for us.” Tears blurred my vision but I wiped them angrily away.
“What?” Jude said, nudging me and saying it again so that I saw. But no one said anything else. We were all equally shocked and horrified.
Dad climbed between the front seats and I edged sideways, pressing against the door, because I didn’t want him to hug me. It felt wrong taking comfort while Glenn was still suffering. He’s dying right now, I thought, and I watched because I felt a duty to witness his death. Even though I could not see through the chaos of vesps, I was seeing his final moments. He’d been there ever since I could remember, my Uncle Glenn, and now he was dying.
But Dad did not remain in the back seat. He reached out and took the shotgun from Mum. I caught her eye as she passed it over the seat, and then I knew.
I didn’t shout. To do so would have betrayed Glenn’s sacrifice. I struggled instead, throwing myself against Dad, trying to stop him climbing over the seats into the boot area. But I was too late, he was gone, and Otis jumped around delighted, licking Dad’s face and raising his head to howl in that way that always brought tears to my eyes, even though I only actually heard it in memory. It was a sign of pure joy.
The howl did not come.
“No,” I whispered, allowing myself that. Mum drew me back, putting her hands across my eyes from behind, but I shrugged her off, tearing her hands away from my face. I was not a fucking kid.
I watched Dad choking my dog to death with the shotgun. He kept his back to us, at least, trying to shield us from the worst. I could see Otis’s kicking legs, and the muscles on Dad’s neck standing out.
Afterwards he knelt there breathing hard, and I allowed my tears at last.
As vesps continued flying past the Jeep, no longer landing, I realised that Dad was not panting at all, but crying.