Amidst the falling dust (The Green and Pleasant Land) Read Free Page A

aloft would not be a problem, but flying at night was not an option. These assets were priceless, to lose any of them would be a setback from which we might not recover.
    We took off from the deck of the carrier at first light and flew until the sky started to darken. There had been several theories thrown as to why the days seemed to have gotten a lot shorter since the downfall. The woeful among us said that it was probably because the sun was reluctant to try and shine life onto a dead world, the realistic among us said it was likely to do with the effects of a nuclear winter. Either way the result was the same, sunlight was a precious commodity.
    It had been a year since Britain succumbed to the cadaver, not a long time in the grand scheme of history yet much of the former nation was unrecognisable. Very few of the towns and villages we came across had not been gutted by fire. The absence of bodies was a testament to the nature of the death that had come to them. Even so here and there I spied piles of bones with moss growing on them. These mass death sites were too organised to have been the cadaver, perhaps one of the lynch mobs that appeared in the early days and attempted to instil order back into their own communities. Perhaps one of the military 'cleansings' that appeared later on in the conflict when the state grew so desperate as to begin mass slaughter of the infected.
    Whatever their origin they, like the rest of the evidence of mankind's existence, were being slowly swallowed by nature. We passed by overhead, we, the remnants of that which came before, we ignored the gathered ghosts who stared up at us. We pressed on along the path that would ultimately unite us with them.
    That first night we were going to stay on the banks of Kielder Water in the national park of the same name. Given the remote nature of the lake it was felt that there was a reasonable chance of there not being any cadavers in the area. In the fading light we touched down on the eastern side of the lake.
    Appointed teams swarmed out of the choppers and fanned out to create a secure perimeter. I formed part of a rear guard, partly through fear, partly through ineptitude. Here and there off into the trees I saw and heard the sounds of metal meeting bone that indicated the presence of the dead. Fortunately our predictions were accurate. Few rotting ghosts haunted the area and those who had made their way on some uncertain path through the undergrowth were despatched quickly and ruthlessly.
    Tents were assembled and guard patrols went out. I found myself down by the water. These shortened days made it feel like the darkness was winning. It closed about the camp with incredible speed, smothering the rampant beauty of natures reclamations with tentacles, which became blankets, which eventually became a vast ocean of unrelenting darkness. A few low lights shone in the camp, but only those which were vital, who knew what kind of eyes might be watching from the forest, what bloody beasts might hungrily regard our mad mortality.
    The moon smiled wanly upon us, she still shone bright if a touch hazy at times. By her grace I could see little of the world reflected in the water. Just my own gaunt, drawn features, sunken brown eyes and a complexion pale enough to compete with the silver face in the sky. My hand disturbed the water until all images were lost in the ripples, I stood and moved back to the camp.
    A sumptuous feast of the stale and the bland was being doled out by the reluctant volunteers who were called chef by those who truly meant to mock. I swallowed down every last crumb and breathed a sigh of disappointment that I'd failed once more to choke on my meal, I would live to see another, that I might then die and see no more.
    The thoughts of excitement which filled my mind when Skellen first announced operation Black Rabbit had faded steadily. The thought of the journey from Edenpark to my house filled me with dread. The thought of what I might