Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

“C’mon.” I said. We jumped up and ran down the other side of the hill, heading for the fields. We ran together at three-quarters full speed, a stitch prodded at my chest but I tried to ignore it and keep on.

“How long do you think we’ve come?”

I glanced back. “About four or five miles I think. Not far.”

I could feel warm blood trickling down my legs. We kept running and running. We ran one, two, three hours, always listening for sirens and I don’t know what else. We kept well away from the road and when we couldn’t avoid it cut across it as quickly and stealthily as possible. We kept well away from the lone cottages and farmers barns on the way, going through field after field, most of them churned up with black ridges of soil that made it difficult for us in our trainers. We passed flocks of sheep who ran away baaing to each other as we ploughed on through their shit. We passed through cow fields where the bulls turned and followed us, making us go even faster. We stormed through the dirt-brown puddles that splashed up and over our legs. I was soaked to the skin. I could feel my clothes getting heavier. My shoes squelched with each water-filled lunge and my jeans rubbed against me with every motion.

I don’t know how long we had been running when Harry broke down in exhaustion. I pulled him back up. Luckily we were near shelter. We climbed over what seemed like the hundredth gate and dragged our bodies down a streamside into the birch forest behind it, collapsing on our backs into the dirt. My ears pricked up. My heart was thumping but we were out of danger for now. I sat up on the mud and watched as Harry scooped water from the brown-colored stream and splashed it to his face, then dunked his head right under and drunk at it like an animal. I knew it was probably filled with sewage, sheep shit and fertilizer from the field next to us. But I didn’t care, I needed water. I dipped my head in fully and did the same. The water was foul and tasted awful. I limited myself to a few mouthfuls. I fell back and lay flat on the ground, my chest rising in and out as I hungrily gulped the air.

After a while, I regained my breath. I calmed down slightly, feeling safer. I watched as Harry started picking out the thorns that were embedded in his shirt and trackies and in his bloody bare arms. The blood had dried in crimson, and he went to washing it out in the river. He splashed water to his lips and dabbed his wound delicately with his finger.  It was only then that I remembered my own cuts. I had ignored and soon forgotten the pain with all the running, but the sensations at the back of my calves returned. It stung.

But it was quiet. We were well hidden in the woods on our side of the stream, and on the other side a row of bushes separated us from the sheep so that we couldn’t be seen from the next field. Along to the left of the bushes there was a slight gap where I could see the open land and the white wooly bodies passing.

“I feel like Frankie fucking Detori.” I said.

“Aya fucker. Bastard. Bastard…I don’t think Frankie has to wade through cowshit and giant fucking barbed-wire fences at Epsom. That’s one race I’d like to see.”

“When you’re done with that, could you check some of my cuts for me?” I said. Harry looked up at me, his former thin lips had swollen triple size, and he was scratched to hell all over. I thanked God for my height.

“Alright.” He said, “Let’s see.”

I stood up with my back to him, undone my jeans belt and pulled them down to my ankles.

“Fuck.” Harry said.

“Is it that bad?”

“Ouch, er, you’ll need to wash that in the river.”

“I’m not washing in that. I’ll just leave it. Probably safer.”

“It’s still bleeding though.”

“Is it?” I tilted my pelvis forward and tried to look at the back of my legs.

“Here, wait a minute.” Harry got up and went into the woods. He came back with a couple of strips of rough birch bark and some brown strips of bracken.

“Tie this around it. Stop the bleeding.”

I looked at the gathering in his hands.

“No, it’s alright. I’ll just use my jumper.”

I took off my soaking hoody and wrapped it tight around my bare right calf, the left one wasn’t so bad, and sat down and pulled my jeans back up to just above my knees. Three rips stretched across the back of the denim. Harry shrugged his shoulders and bound the bark around his arms instead, tied it on with the bracken and knotted it at the end. He looked ridiculous.

“What a day to wear a t-shirt, eh?” I said.

“I know.”

“Your face looks sore.”

He dabbed his daffy duck lips with his finger. “It’s just stingy that’s all. I’ll be fine.”

He sat back down by the quiet rushing stream, took off his trainers and dangled his feet in the low water. I listened to its gurgling and the soft rush as the water hit the rocks and swept along, and it calmed my mind.

“So where we gonna go?” I said.

He watched the stream. A sheep ba’ed in the field. “Well the further north the better, I think. You got any friends around here?”

“No, just my old social worker, Mrs. Mack- but I didn’t take her number with me. Don’t know anyone else.”

“Where is she?”

“London.”

“Hm.” He tightened the bizarre tourniquets on his arms.

“What about you?”