Divinity Road (3 page)

He notes that this section was part of the storage hold, and that a fair amount of the luggage seems to have come down to earth intact. He glances at the topsy-turvy pile of suitcases, backpacks and holdalls – a mountain of leather, plastic and canvas, floral, striped and tartan – and shrugs.

He needs to rest, so heads back to the shady spot under the tree, lowers himself onto the dusty soil, drinks another bottle of water and tries to formulate some coherent thoughts. Without him noticing, the pain in his head has altered from a pounding rhythm to a needling drill.

What next?

Some fucking paracetamol wouldn’t go amiss.

Focus on the bigger picture.

My head hurts.

My heart bleeds. Take a look around you, you ponce.

And all at once it hits him that the scattered bodies parts about him recently belonged to living creatures, that the bodies had names and identities and, with a flush of guilty shame, that some of those bodies may still be alive, that he has been so wrapped up in slaking his thirst that he hasn’t even bothered to go round and check them for signs of life.

After all, you survived. Why couldn’t one of them have too?

He hauls himself to his feet, makes his way unsteadily to the nearest corpse, changes his mind, decides to make a systematic sweep starting to his far left, make sure he misses no one, gives everybody a fair chance. It’s like a pact between the living and the dead. Only they’re not dead yet, he reflects. They remain in some floating limbo, waiting to have their status confirmed.

His legs are stiff and bruised, scratched in a hundred places, his ribs raw and angry. As he stumbles towards the furthest corpse, he becomes aware that the stink of decay in the air is growing more pronounced.

The first body is that of a young woman, perhaps twenty-five, an African with espresso skin and horsey features. Her lips are drawn back, her teeth exposed in a grimace, her eyes wide open but empty. He reaches down, touches her face and closes her eyes. There’s an airline blanket lying next to her which he picks up and places gently over her head.

He can remember the next two bodies. The first, an elderly white, an outdoor man to judge from his ruddy features, has clearly broken his neck. The second, the mixed race air hostess, has had her skirt and blouse ripped from her in the crash, is dressed only in panties and bra, looks as if she is sleeping. It is only when he lifts her head that he sees that the back of her skull is missing, that grey, oozing brain matter is exposed. He lays her back on the ground and fetches a blanket to cover her face, another for her bare body.

After that his sweep of bodies becomes a blur, this one missing a leg, that one’s features unrecognisable, the next almost decapitated. For each casualty, he makes sure the body is covered up, its eyes closed, its modesty preserved.

An hour later, sweating, nauseous, shaking from his exertions, he returns to the shade.

He is the only survivor.

On his travels, he has picked up another bottle of water and he sips from this as he recovers from his ordeal. The heat is stifling, the stench worsening. He takes off the floppy hat he’s been wearing and douses his hair with water. It provides a few moments of relief.

So what’s the plot? When do the cavalry arrive?

Depends where we are. Depends whether they know.

‘Course they know. Black boxes, flight transmitters, all that stuff.

Yeah, well, maybe. Might not be so easy to get here. It’s not exactly Henley-on-Thames, is it?

So where are we then, smartarse?

Dunno. Think about how long we were in the air. Think about the flight path.

He closes his eyes, tries to visualise a map of Africa, to trace a line from South Africa northwards, to calculate time in the air and translate that figure into distances.

Congo. Or maybe the bottom half of Sudan. Maybe even further north. A long way from home, anyway
.

And then he remembers his mobile phone. It’s still in his breast pocket, flat, silver and sleek. He takes it out, checks whether it’s working. It’s apparently undamaged, but he can’t get a signal. He gets up, limps over to the nearest body, a male flight attendant, takes a deep breath, bends down and begins rifling through his pockets. He’s examined four bodies, tried out two more phones, before he accepts that he’s not going to communicate electronically.

Back under the shade he feels restless. Despite the heat, the shock, the gore he’s witnessed, he feels the first pangs of hunger.

If I’m going to be here a while. I’d better sort out some food.

He heads back to the section of fuselage that contained the meal preparation area. Amongst the remains of the chicken trays and dessert pots, he finds some portions of processed cheese, three or four rolls, a box of cellophaned crackers, packets of peanuts, a stash of undamaged water bottles. He empties a plastic carrier bag lying nearby and fills it with the provisions.

In the earlier sweep he’d come across other scattered food – some sweet biscuits, more crackers and peanuts – and he limps off to fetch them, adding them to his bag.

On the way back to his tree, he comes to an abrupt halt. On his previous sweep, away next to a section of the aircraft’s wing, he’d noticed an old-fashioned rucksack with what looked like a tent strapped to the frame. He totters over, retrieves the bright orange baggage, carries it back to his base.

As he side-steps one of the bodies that he’s recently covered in a navy-blue blanket, he notices an almost imperceptible movement from beneath the fabric. He stops, bends down, pulls back the blanket more in hope than expectation.

The body, that of a middle-aged woman, is lying face up. She looks Middle Eastern, short black hair greying at the roots, thick eyebrows, olive-skinned, faint downy hairs on her upper lip, a large brown mole on her chin. Her mouth is slightly open, her lips and teeth stained with fresh scarlet blood. And as he crouches down and peers at her face, a small pink bubble forms between her lips, then pops feebly.

Jesus. She’s alive.

He racks his brains for hazy, half-forgotten first aid directions. Don’t move her. Don’t give her anything to drink. Call an ambulance and reassure the casualty while you wait for its arrival. He almost smiles.

He swipes away a cloud of flies, considers what to do.

If I get the tent up in the shade, she can rest there. It’ll keep the flies off her at least. I’ll have to carry her over and she’ll just have to take her chances.

Despite the damaged ribs, the bruised legs, he hurries back to his tree and sets about erecting the tent. It’s an amateur effort, the tent pegs refusing to penetrate the unyielding soil, but he eventually gets it raised. He returns to the woman and tries to pick her up but in his weakened state he can’t manage. In the end he clasps her under her armpits and drags her to the tent, pulls her inside, lays her gently on the bed of blankets he’s prepared. Apart from the bloody bubble, she shows no other signs of life.

Disregarding his earlier directives, he fetches a bottle of water, tries to pour some into her mouth, but most of it trickles down her chin. He feels for a pulse, cannot find one, yet he’s sure she’s still alive. He zips up the flap of the tent, sits down outside it. The heat’s reached its zenith and the fetid odour is becoming increasingly difficult to bear. He pictures the stomachs of the other bodies swelling, notices the clouds of flies thickening. He cannot relax, his senses overwhelmed by the stench, the relentless buzzing.

So you’re just going to wait it out, are you?

You got a better idea?

Well, you might want to consider making a move.

Really? What about the cavalry?

Yeah, well, they might come. But in the meantime, this is no picnic site, is it?

True. Still, I can put up with the stench. It’s not going to kill me.

Maybe not, though it’s what it might attract that’s more the problem.

What’re you talking about?

Dead bodies. Carrion. Hyenas, lion. Think about it.

Here? You sure? He looks around doubtfully. He’s suddenly aware that most of the day has gone, that it’s only a few hours until sunset. The thought of spending the night here alone is terrifying.

Chin up. Someone might turn up at any moment. Still, just to be on the safe side, it wouldn’t do any harm to have another look around, see what you can find that might be useful if you do have to leave. Pack a proper bag. Better safe than sorry, eh?

And with that, he’s up on his feet, sets about emptying out a backpack he’d noticed wedged between a section of wing flap and a thorny shrub close to the section of storage fuselage.

He slings it over his shoulder, sets off on yet another scavenging mission.

It takes him an hour to fill his bag. At one point, when he finds someone’s first aid kit, he stops to take some aspirin, swabs the bloodied side of his face with cotton wool doused in disinfectant, washes off the worst of the grime and gore from his various cuts and scratches. Soon after that he strikes gold. Away near what may once have been the cockpit, he finds a green plastic box marked

Emergency Survival Kit
, cracked but still intact. He extracts a compass, a heliograph, a safety whistle, a folding knife, first aid dressings and some waterproof matches. He adds his mobile phone to the bag, more for talismanic reasons than from hope of making contact, and a handsome pair of binoculars that he recovers from a leather holdall. He’s also packed the supply of food including a packet of dried fruit, some biltong and a tube of boiled sweets. The backpack’s still only half full, and he fills the remaining space with more bottled water. By the time he’s finished looting, his battered body is utterly exhausted.

Back in the shade, he checks on the woman, then makes a pillow from a rolled up blanket, lies down on a second blanket next to the tent and closes his eyes. He knows he must rest before attempting further physical activity.

Later, he stirs. His clothes feel soiled and he suddenly wonders whether he can find his own bag in the storage. He’d travelled light – it’d been a last-minute decision to travel to the funeral – and he’d taken only a small canvas holdall. Back amongst the wreckage, he climbs onto the pile of bags, begins to sort his way through it.

The large metallic case is lying next to his holdall, so when he first sees it he ignores it, focuses solely on retrieving his own possessions. It’s only when he’s picked out a pair of khaki trousers, an olive, long-sleeved shirt, some clean socks and a pair of trainers, stripped off his filthy gear and re-dressed, that his attention returns to the case. It’s oblong, stainless steel, heavy, over a metre in length and protected by two elaborate-looking combination locks. His eye is caught by the fire-red PROHIBITED ITEM stickers plastered on the front of the case, the yellow SPECIAL ITEM tape wound around the handle.

He hauls the case out, drags it back to the tree and tries to force the locks with the penknife. Sweat runs down his forehead, stinging his eyes. The buzzing of the flies, the stabbing pain in his head, the obstinacy of the locks all combine to turn his curiosity into fixation, his exhaustion into rage. He gets up, hunts the ground for a suitable rock, carries it back to the shade. He begins to pound at the locks with all his strength.

For a full five minutes he attacks the locking mechanisms. The casing becomes scratched, dented, loses its smart shine, but the locks remain firm. Blisters are forming on his hand. He stops, looks up, notices the first streaks of dusky orange on the horizon as the sun sinks gradually behind the faraway hills, feels a squeeze of panic in his bowels at the prospect of the approaching night. In the distance, off where the furthest debris has landed, he watches something large and dark swoop down from the sky, land next to a body and approach it in great hopping movements. It takes him a few seconds to recognise the vulture.

He channels the panic into fury, redoubles his efforts and, when he least expects it, the casing opens and the first mechanism surrenders. Encouraged, he begins work on the second lock. By the time it, too, yields, the blisters have been rubbed raw and his hands are slippery with blood. He opens the case.

He’s unprepared for what he sees, but feels a sense of satisfaction that the contents justify the effort put in to reveal them. He finds himself looking down at a sleek, elegant hunting rifle encased in rich black velvet. There are two slots sunk into the velvet for the small, trim magazines, a flap revealing an empty pocket for ammunition. He takes out the rifle, runs his hand along the flat wooden stock, the cold black barrel, the smooth curve of the telescopic sights.

He recalls a visit to Ireland to visit Nuala’s relatives, her farmer cousin taking him out shooting with a shotgun, another episode of target practice with a small .22 rifle used for lamping rabbits. He senses that the weapon he now holds in his hands is vastly more powerful, and he feels a surge of adrenalin as he weighs it in his hands.

He picks up the magazine, sees with disappointment that it is empty, reasons that gun and ammunition have perhaps been kept apart for safety reasons. Maybe somewhere among the cargo there is a separate package of rounds.

And then he recalls a small steel case he’d spotted earlier near the food preparation section, another box covered in the SPECIAL ITEM tape. His first instinct had been to investigate, and he’d bent to remove the bundle that lay across it, recoiled in horror as he recognised it as part of a severed leg. Revulsion had replaced curiosity and he’d moved on.