Page 135 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

“We’ll be very careful. We won’t go in unless we’re reasonably sure we can all get out,” Einar promised with renewed kindness, the harsh tension of his whole posture softening, the angry angle of his eyebrows mellowing out only to be replaced by an expression that was even more unbearable; a patronising benevolence that showed that while he regretted my tears, he would absolutely not let them sway him this time.

46

MORITURI TE SALUTANT

Steely grey clouds gathered above our heads as we glided up the serpentine roads amid snow-capped, forested mountains. There were only a few cars left abandoned on the way, and we approached the Swiss Italian border with close to pre-pandemic speed. Einar stopped the Audi at the gaping maw of the concrete structure. Mount Mort soared beyond it; its staggering peak submerged in a halo of unformed mist.

Einar got out, hand hooked in the belt at his waist, lined with two knives and two gun holsters. He stood motionless and seemingly lost in deep thought, withstanding the harsh mountain winds with stoicism that could only be achieved by someone accustomed to harsh elements. After a while, he shook his head and strode back towards the vehicle.

He opened the door and leaned in.

“Right,” he said, “we’re going to take all the weapons to the front. All but the grenades, those we wouldn’t want to use in a tunnel anyway. Dave, Kevin, help me do that, and then I’ll turn the car around.”

“Are we not going in there?” I asked hopefully, straightening up.

“We are,” he assured me, “but I figure that if there are hordes up ahead, we will be much better equipped to escape them this way. Granted, getting through the tunnel in reverse will be a nuisance and take forever, but?—”

“It will allow us to retreat much faster if we need to,” I finished his sentence approvingly.

I was rewarded with a devastating smile.

“I promised you that we’d be cautious, darling. I’m not a man to break a promise.”

Indeed, he was not.

We did what he said. Audi, facing the way we had come, motor running, Einar marched towards the tunnel entrance with a gun in his hand.

“Hey, roamers!” he bellowed, firing a couple of shots inside the structure. “Come get me!”

Nonchalantly, he then walked back towards the car and leaned against its side leisurely, waiting. The noise he had made wouldn’t echo throughout the length of the tunnel, but if there were any furies at the front portion, it was bound to draw them out and allow us to fight them in the open.

Nothing happened. The wind howled all around, swirling the mist around the harsh granite face of Mount Mort. Trees around us bent with its force, and the blotches of snow still surviving on the ground here and there gleamed dully in the dim light.

After what seemed an eternity, Einar nodded in satisfaction.

“You drive, man,” he told Dave. “I want to be able to get in and out quickly if we need to shuffle any cars around in there or kill a few infected.”

Dave nodded in acquiescence, and soon our ears rang with the roar of the running engine.

The good thing about the St Bernard tunnel was that most of the Italian portion of it did not resemble a tunnel at all. It was a concrete structure with a solid wall to our left but withnothing but supporting pillars to the right, granting us not only a glorious view of the surrounding mountains but also a possible escape route in case we were truly desperate.

Our journey was painfully slow and became slower still as we went on due to an increasing number of long-abandoned cars, lorries, and vans on the way. It grew even more congested as we drove by abandoned tollbooths. A solid wall soon replaced the pillars on our right. It was very dark inside. I struggled to breathe, my chest closing in on me the same way the cement walls seemed to.

The road had been driven through recently, as much as we could tell, because a pathway wormed its way through the graveyard of vehicles, just wide enough for a car to squeeze through between the wrecks. The problem was that it was a little too narrow for our Audi, making it nearly impossible to navigate through the metal maze in reverse. Dave kept bumping into the boundaries, scratching the car’s side against them with a nasty, screeching sound of metal on metal that reverberated through the tunnel.

“Hold on.” Einar released his seat belt and forced the bulk of his body through the tight space that the opening of his door afforded him. He began the slow, laborious task of pushing smaller abandoned cars out of the way, the muscles on his back and arms straining with the effort, his flanks wide and competent, thighs and rump burly with strength. Soon, there were stains of sweat around his neck and between his arms, turning his shirt a darker shade of grey, but we were finally able to move on with more ease. Still, it unnerved me to see him outside the safety of the Audi and exposed, visceral trepidation coursing through my veins. I had never wished for anything more than to be out of that infernal place, surrounded by fresh air, with Einar smiling in the seat next to me.

It will be alright, I kept telling myself,we will get through and then it will be alright.

Abruptly, the character of the tunnel transformed into a futuristic chute of gently rounding ceiling and walls that shone white in our headlights. My neck hurt from craning back in an attempt to keep my eye on Einar through the back window.

I was just about to give my shoulder tendons a much-needed break by turning forward, when I saw him stop abruptly, his shoulders tensing so visibly it was as if he had turned to stone. An acrid smell of blood that lingered in the air reached me through my open window. My heart nearly tore out of my ribcage.

There was an abandoned lorry to our left, its front facing the direction of the Italian side we had left behind us. Its faded, grey canvas was torn to shreds in places. A tiny, purple Toyota was crashed into its rear, entirely blocking our route ahead. The red-tinged rear lights of the Audi illuminated a torn, faceless corpse by the Toyota’s door, only a few paces ahead of Einar. He slipped on the puddle of cold, congealed blood as he went to take a closer look.

“Einar, get back in the car!” I yelled loud enough to be heard over the motor’s rumble.

As well as over the growls of roamers that leapt from the tears in the lorry’s canvas.