This an excerpt from my short story ‘Fallout’, published in the NewCon Press anthology Conflicts.

FALLOUT (Excerpt)
By Gareth L Powell

Despite what was to come, the day started well. An hour before sunrise they landed the rented jet at a decommissioned RAF base in Wiltshire, near Swindon. It was a cold morning and frost glittered on the grass at the edge of the runway.

Leaving the pilot and cabin crew to look after the plane, they pulled four motorbikes from its hold and clipped dosimeters to their lapels. Then they donned helmets and drove their bikes downhill, through dark and empty villages, to the army check point at the M4 motorway junction. Rusty, concrete-filled oil drums blocked the westbound slip road and a tired sergeant blew into his hands. He wore a long coat and a fur hat with khaki earflaps. The men behind him cradled standard-issue SA80 assault rifles.

“We were told to expect you,” he said through his moustache. His breath steamed in their headlights. He glanced at their papers, then back over his shoulder at the unlit, empty carriageway stretching away behind him, into the dead zone. He shivered.

“Rather you than me,” he said.

On the lead bike, Ann Szkatula pushed up her visor. She had silver eye shadow and a matching silk scarf. Behind her, the three other riders each had a foot on the ground, engines running, eager for the off.

“Thanks,” she said.

#

Some of the soldiers wanted autographs. Ann sat patiently as the three American boys signed iPod cases and posed for photographs. Then, with the barrier open and the empty road stretching ahead, she led them out onto the carriageway, and up to a steady 110 kilometres an hour. Travelling at that speed, they soon passed the derelict service area at Leigh Delamere, and the Bath junction.

On both sides of the road the countryside was dark. The farms they passed were deserted. There were no crops in the fields and the cattle were long-gone. On the motorway verges, abandoned vehicles rusted, their tires flat and windows broken; and until the white sun rose behind them, the only lights Ann saw were their own.

“Welcome to the West Country,” she said over the bike-to-bike intercom. No one answered. They were all too caught up in the desolate splendour of the cold dawn, and the creeping fear of the invisible radiation sleeting through their bodies from the crash site ahead. Beside her, she saw Dustin leaning forward on his bike, his chin almost touching the Honda’s handlebars. The other two members of the band were weaving around on their yellow Kawasakis – trailer park kids still adjusting to their new-found wealth.

Dustin was the cute one. With his blue eyes and floppy fringe, he was the face of the group. He sang lead. The other two, Kent and Brad, danced and did backing vocals. Today, all three were wrapped in brand-new matching black leathers.

Together, they swept down to the junction with the M32. It was the main turn-off for Bristol. Ann pulled over and the boys slithered to a halt beside her. Dustin was the closest. He flipped up his visor.

“How much further is it, Ann?”

Ann looked at her dosimeter. This close to ground zero, the ambient radiation levels were more than a hundred times higher than normal – not enough to cause undue concern, but enough to remind her of the need for caution.

“If we carry on for a couple of miles, we’ll be able to see the crater. We can’t go any further than that, so from there we’ll take the A38 right into the heart of the city, where there’ll be plenty of empty streets for you to race around.”

#

Four-abreast, they rolled up to the Almondsbury interchange, where the M4 crossed the cracked and shattered surface of the M5. From there, the Severn Valley stretched out before them, a patchwork of overgrown fields and industrial ruin.

Ann turned her engine off and leaned the bike on its stand. They could go no further. A barricade of charred and rusting cars blocked the carriageway. Below, through the morning haze, the irradiated waters of the Severn smouldered like molten bronze. The ruined power stations of Oldbury and Berkeley lay to the north, and directly ahead, the twin Severn bridges stood, their towers partially collapsed and their sagging steel cables slowly unravelling…

The boys took off their helmets and Dustin ruffled his trademark fringe into shape. Brad shook out his white dreadlocks. Ann took a pair of binoculars and climbed up onto the bonnet of a burned-out Volvo. It was hard to make out the crash site itself from this angle, lying as it did in the mud at the water’s edge.

“There’s some wreckage over there,” she said. She handed the glasses to Dustin, guiding him to where the nose of the crashed alien craft lay in the thick estuary mud like a dropped eggshell. Smaller fragments littered the grass for miles around, like twisted tinfoil. As she moved her head, some of them caught the morning sun.

“I heard it was bigger than that,” Dustin said.

Ann took the binoculars back and handed them to Brad. “It exploded in the air,” she said. “I guess some of it fell in the water.”

When they’d all had a look, Dustin gave Ann his mobile camera phone and the three boys posed on the rusted cars as she used it to take pictures of them, with the collapsed bridges and crash site as an apocalyptic backdrop.

Dustin tucked his helmet under his arm and struck a heroic attitude.

“I’m so putting these on MySpace,” he said.

#

Read the rest of the story in Conflicts. Click here to buy.

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