As the saying goes, time waits for no man. And right now, time was in limited supply. We simply couldn't get enough of it.
So, we dragged our weary bodies back to the street the pickup truck was parked on and climbed.
For a moment, we all sat there quietly in the truck, the only thing that moved was our chests as we breathed in and out slowly.
Now that the adrenaline had left our bodies after the fight with the cat, we were starting to feel it. The burnout.
I have felt burnout many times, and from personal experience, the tougher the fight, the worse the come down after it is. Kind of like a runner's high. After brushing closely with death, a euphoric relief washes over you. It can be dangerously addictive.
After he had caught his breath, Kashyap pulled off his most famous move. The old' Stick his hand into the dashboard, pull out some wires and connect them.
Honestly, I'm not going to pretend that I have a clue how it gets the car going. But I sure as hell am glad he does. Just between you and me, I would rather die than walk to France, and cycling there gives me a strange feeling... it didn't feel very apocalyptic.
The car chugged into life and Kashyap slapped the dashboard enthusiastically. "Yes!" He cheered.
"What's got you so pleased?" I asked curiously.
Kashyap grinned furiously and pointed to the fuel gauge, "This thing has almost a full tank of fuel, more than enough to get us to France."
"Hooray..." Kyle said half-heartedly. He was slouched over in the passenger seat, half asleep.
Kashyap smirked at Kyle's energyless reply, nudging him playfully, "I think being bait really tired him out." He said jokingly.
At the hearing 'Bait,' Kyle's head snapped up and he glared furiously at me. "Never. Again." He said with finality.
"Maybe if you weren't so weak we wouldn't have to use you as bait," August said goadingly.
Kyle didn't reply, but I could see him clench his fists. Perhaps August had just bitten off more than he could chew.
"Who knows, maybe Kyle's fear of being bait will motivate him to become stronger than you," I said with a laugh.
When August saw that Kyle was staying quiet, his face turned pale, "You... you don't think that would really happen, do you?" He asked me nervously.
"It's possible," I said seriously.
"But... Who will be bait if he isn't?" August asked anxiously.
Kashyap and I looked at him meaningfully, the look in our eyes said more than words needed to.
"I see..." August said grimly.
...
The drive out of the suburbs of London was a quiet one. The city itself had been burned out the day before. Most buildings that might fall had already fallen. Those that remained were the sturdy kind that had already been around since that last time London was destroyed, in the great fire.
A childish thought crossed my mind as we drove around the cracked and vacant ring road that circled London.
"What if we go back and rob Buckingham Palace?" I blurted out.
"Yes! I want the crown jewels," August said greedily. His reply was almost too quick.
Kashyap chortled to himself before he responded, "No way! Do you have any idea how bad the traffic will be at this time of the day? I am not going to pay for parking, are you?" He asked pointing to a non-existent watch on his wrist.
We spent the next couple of minutes trying to convince Kashyap that we should go back and rob the Palace. While he stubbornly refused to drive us there. We were just joking of course, but it was fun to pass the time like this.
Slowly, the remnants of London grew more and more distant. The city that had once shone and sparkled beneath the sun like a jewel in England's crown, was stained grey and red and black. None of its majesty remained, and it would never be rebuilt.
We didn't think of things like this as we drove. It was too sombre, too sad. We passed the time by playing little games in the car.
August tried to get us to play his favourite game, rainbow. In this game, you all looked out for different coloured cars, and the first to complete the rainbow won. You had to find a red car, an orange car, a yellow car... etc.
Sadly, the roads were barren. Aside from the occasional cracks in the asphalt and wrecked car, it was empty.
Next, I was up to bat, and the game I offered was a classic. I Spy.
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with S," I said.
"Smoke!" Kashyap shouted,
"Yup," I nodded.
"Damnit, I was going to guess that," August cursed to himself.
Now it was Kashyap's turn, he looked around thoughtfully and then seemed to make up his mind, "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with S," He said.
"Uhh Smoke!" August shouted immediately.
"Nope," Kashyap said, shaking his head.
"Sinkhole!" I yelled pointing to the giant gaping chasm that had opened up in the road in front of us.
"Yeah," Kashyap said as he casually steered the car around the massive hole. Since the road was clear and we were on the highway, there was plenty of room to avoid the hole. We could even drive on the other side of the road if we wanted. There wasn't exactly much oncoming traffic.
Just as I was about to begin the next round, August started complaining, "This is boring, isn't there any music we could listen to?"
"Aren't you just mad because you keep losing?" I teased. And I could have sworn he went for his knife. I need to remember not to annoy too much... as long as I don't want to get stabbed anyway.
"There's no radio, but..." Kashyap's voice became slightly muffled as he rummaged in the glove compartment on Kyle's side of the car. The pickup truck swerved violently, but the road was so empty that we weren't worried we would hit anything.
"How's this?" Kashyap finally asked, holding up a cd he had found. It was scratched all over, showing the wear and tear that came with being played 100s of times.
"What is it?" August asked as he squinted at the cd.
"It's a cd," I said, pointing out the obvious.
"Yeah, I know that, you idiot. I'm asking what is on the cd," August replied hatefully and I had to suppress a smirk. He may be crazy but he was fun to annoy.
The cd had no cover and looked homemade, it was the type that you made yourself by burning all of your favourite songs onto the disk.
"There's only one way to find out," Kashyap said before sticking the cd into the player in the truck. It would be a miracle if the thing actually worked after all those wires Kashyap had pulled out of it.
Then, softly at first, the sound of a guitar-playing appeared in the car. It began building up momentum and we all started to get excited. I was nodding my head back and forth unconsciously and Kashyap was tapping out the rhythm of the guitar on the steering wheel. Even August couldn't help but tap his feet along with the beat.
The song kept building in momentum, the guitar growing louder and fiercer, building up to a raucous crescendo of intense sound. And then, a harsh voice burst out in front of the guitar, taking centre stage.
I won't bore the details... because the voice spoke german. None of us could understand a word that was said. Clearly, whoever had owned this car was german.
Kyle, who had been woken up by the blaring music reached out his hand to turn off the radio. Right as he was about to touch the button to eject the cd, Kashyap slapped his hand away.
"But I..." Kyle tried to speak but was cut off.
"No, the driver picks the music in my car," Kashyap said sternly. I had never seen him look that serious before.
"Can you speak German?" I asked curiously.
"No," Kashyap replied.
"Then why...?" I asked, baffled.
"It's never too late to learn," Kashyap said without looking up from the road.
Thus, we spent the trip to the Channel Tunnel trying to learn German through blaring rock music. Believe me, this is exactly as hard as it sounds.
It was getting harder to think with the German man shouting at me and I could feel a migraine coming on. Still, I couldn't help but notice that the car was shaking ever so slightly.
And, the further south we went, the more the car shook. At first, I chalked it up to the poor state that the roads were in. Which wasn't wrong.
Indeed, the further south we drove, the worse the damage to the motorway we were on became. More cracks appeared in the asphalt, more sinkholes barred our way. There was even a point where we were forced to go offroad to get past a bridge that had collapsed onto the motorway.
So it was easy to chalk up the car shaking to the poor conditions. But, after a while, I noticed a rhythm when the car shook. I got out my phone to time it and found out that the car shook roughly every 10 minutes.
And, when I paid closer attention to our surroundings, I noticed it wasn't only the car that shook. Everything did. Small tremors were running through the ground, every 10 minutes.