Mute

Chapter 36. Cabin fever

Georgie and Ant left the car at the clifftop and walked the half-mile to the cabin. The moon had lost its red tint as it climbed further into the sky and the white glow it cast was just enough for them to see their way; like nightlights that people put on their landings so their guests, too shy to turn on the light while creeping to the toilet in the small hours, wouldn't have to blunder around in the dark.

They each held a sawn-off shotgun, having decided that they would be best for close-up fighting. They also had their full-length rifles over their shoulders; giving them a total of four shots each before having to reload.

They were two-hundred yards from the cabin, which, as Georgie had explained to Ant, wasn't a cabin at all but a small, two-storey detached house. As expected, all the windows were dark, giving them no indication as to who or what might be inside. They were grateful that the surrounding fields were flat and empty because it meant they could rule out the possibility of mutants being concealed anywhere outside. All they had to worry about were the ones that might be lurking in the darkness of the cabin.

They stooped low and walked slowly for a few yards, then, as their road safety classes in primary school had taught them, they stopped, looked and listened. Seeing and hearing nothing untoward, they moved again.

They walked around the house slowly and carefully. They looked through each of the ground floor windows but it was too dark to see inside. They reached the back door and Ant tried it. It was locked. They carried on walking. The front door was locked too. The house was intact; nothing had broken in. This was a good indication that no mutants were inside, but by no means a guarantee. From what Georgie and Ant had seen, the mutants' entry-procedure of choice tended to be to smash their way in, but the behaviour of both Farmer Mutant and Shy Mutant had suggested that there could be more in their locker. Georgie and Ant were taking no chances.

Georgie touched Ant's arm and pointed at the first-floor window above them. Ant retrieved a pebble from his pocket, one of several that he had taken from the clifftop. "You ready?" He whispered. He was close enough to Georgie to see that she was nodding. She raised her sawn-off and braced herself for action.

When they had been sitting on the clifftop they hadn't just been enjoying the view, they had been coming up with a plan. They had considered what Ant had called the Stealth/SWAT approach. This involved tiptoeing inside and checking each room by torchlight. If they saw any mutants, asleep or otherwise, they would shoot them, preferably at point-blank range. A downside to this plan was that as soon as the first shot had been fired, any other mutants in the building would come running to see what all the fuss was about. There was also the risk of itchy trigger fingers. Georgie and Ant didn't have elite military training and sneaking around in the dark is a nervy business; it wouldn't be out of the question for them to panic in the heat of the moment and inadvertently murder one or more of Georgie's family.

They had asked themselves why they were being quite so cautious. They had entered a lot of buildings on their travels and, whilst they had always been careful, they had pretty much just gone inside and hoped for the best. They had never given it as much thought as they were now. They were out in the sticks on the very edge of the country. Not many people had lived there before the end of the world, which meant not many people could have turned into mutants. It didn't seem a very likely spot for mutants to migrate to either; the sea was close but they couldn't picture mutants catching fish in those crashing waves.

So why, they had wondered, were they being so cagey now?

The plan they settled on was to make their way to the cabin under cover of darkness and break a window on the upstairs floor. If there were mutants inside they would make plenty of noise waking up, and Georgie and Ant would be ready to pick them off as they appeared at the front door. It wasn't just mutants that they were checking for; humans could be dangerous too. The window Georgie had chosen was in the master bedroom; the most likely place for her parents, or any other humans, to sleep. If anyone was inside they would react to their window being broken and Georgie and Ant would be ready.