Down Station by Simon Morden Page B

body, as far as she could, disgusted by the touch and the weight.
    The animal sound cut through the air again. Mary’s stomach tightened, and she could feel her legs get ready to run. She forced herself to walk, all the way up to the tree line.
    ‘Seriously,’ she said, as she laid the fish out on the ground and wondered where she was supposed to wipe her fingers. ‘What the fuck is that noise?’
    ‘Wolves,’ said Stanislav and Dalip at the same time. They shrugged at each other, and Stanislav continued. ‘A wolf. There will be more.’
    ‘There aren’t any wolves in England,’ she said.
    ‘Then we are no longer in England,’ Stanislav said. ‘There are wolves in Europe. Perhaps we are there instead.’
    ‘There are plenty in North America too,’ said Dalip. ‘Though I don’t suppose that’s helpful.’
    Mary drew her lips in, and on cue, the wolf – if that was what it was – howled. It was the scariest thing she’d ever heard, and she’d run in riots with the roar of voices, the barking of fighting dogs and the wail of sirens.
    ‘Are they dangerous? I mean, they’re wild, right?’
    ‘They sometimes attack people. The small, the weak, the injured.’ Stanislav crouched down and picked up a long springy twig from a pile he’d made. He poked it through both gills of a fish, and held it up. ‘We need a frame to hold these above the fire.’
    Dalip nodded, and started to sort through the wood pile for suitable lumber.
    ‘Can we keep on talking about the wolves?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    ‘Well, what are we going to do about them?’
    ‘It depends,’ he said, ‘on what they want to do about us. They will stay away from us, and our fire, or they will not. Those are their choices. If they attack us, we will defend ourselves as a group, or they will pick us off one by one. Those are our choices. If we climbed trees, the wolves would still be there when we came down. But it is unlikely that we will have to fight. They are, as you say, wild, and they will either be afraid of us, or they will not see us as food. These fish, however, will bring them to us, and are better off inside us than not.’
    He carried on threading them, one after another, on to sticks, while Dalip began to construct a short tripod next to the fire. Stanislav glanced over to check his design, then carried on with his own task.
    Mary didn’t know what else to say. There were wolves in the forest, and no one seemed to care.
    ‘Do not go for a walk,’ he said, without looking up. ‘Night is falling, and we do not know how long it will last.’
    She didn’t like being told what to do, but she only went as far as just beyond the tree line, and stood with her hands in her pockets, balling her fists. The sky was darkening, and the sun was now below the ridge behind her, casting a long, dark shadow across the river valley. In the far distance, the light still caught the tops of the mountain range and they glowed like rosy lights in the sky.
    It wasn’t a sight she was used to. What she knew was the regular shapes of roofs and walls, spires and masts, reflections from windows and the steady sodium orange of the street lights. And the sounds: the city hummed, a deep bass rumble of traffic and machinery that infested even skin and bone. The only sounds here were the drone from the clouds of insects that misted the air over the river, the hiss of wind in the leaves and the grasses, and the occasional arse-clenching wolf call.
    Natural. She wasn’t used to it. Fortunately, she didn’t need to get used to it either. They’d find a way back soon, and everything would return to normal. Of course, she might not have a job anymore, depending on how much damage the Underground had sustained. She might not have a room at the hostel anymore, either. That was for someone else to sort out – her probation officer, her social worker – not her.
    She became aware of a sudden silence, and a white glow just over the horizon. Slowly, slowly, an