Read Online Rites of Passage by Eric Brown - Free Book Online

The air was heavy and hot, oppressive. I controlled my breathing, enjoying the cooling sand, and considered the journey south.
    A sound made me jump. I thought it was Edvard, come to join me. But the skeletal figure that came hobbling out on crutches, fashioned from lengths of metal cannibalised from the wreck of the glider, was the pilot.
    He eased himself down onto the sand beside me and nodded. “It’s cooler out here.” The little light spilling from the truck made his face seem even more skull-like. I took shallow breaths, not wanting to inhale his acid stink.
    “That’s why I’m here,” I said.
    A pause. Then, “Maybe you’ll listen to sense, Pierre. I’ve tried the others. They’re too old, set in their ways.”
    “They’re my friends,” I said, and then as if to make it clearer, “my family. We’re in this together.”
    I looked at him. His sly eyes appeared calculating. “Listen to me, Pierre. You’re no fool. If we head south, to the Med...”
    “Yes?”
    A pause. He licked his lips. “There’s dangers down there, things you haven’t encountered in Europe.”
    “You said. Feral bands–”
    “Worse!”
    “Worse than feral bands?”
    “Much worse. Feral means animal. You can deal with animals, outwit ’em. These people... these people are no fools. They’re evil, and calculating.” I wondered, for a second, if he were describing himself. “You ever seen what human beings can do when they’re desperate?”
    I thought back to the ruins of Paris, before the desert engulfed the city. I considered the people I’d lived with, and why I left. Yes, I almost told him, I’ve experienced desperate people, and survived. But I said nothing, reluctant to share with Skull what I’d never told anyone else, not even Danny or Kat or Edvard.
    “Like Danny said,” I murmured, not looking at him, “we can look after ourselves.”
    Skull spat viciously. “Fools, the lot of you!”
    I considered what Danny had said last night. Into the following silence, I said, “What are you frightened of, Skull? What are you running away from?”
    He looked at me, then grinned. “No, you’re no fool, are you?”
    “Well?”
    I didn’t expect him to tell me, so I was surprised when he said, “People so fucking evil, so purely bad, you cannot imagine, Pierre.”
    And he left it at that, as if challenging me to enquire further.
    ~
    I was at the wheel of the truck the following day when we came to the escarpment overlooking what had once been the Mediterranean sea.
    Danny said, “Would you look at that.”
    Kat and Edvard squeezed into the cab.
    The land before us fell away suddenly to form a vast, scooped-out crater bigger than the eye could encompass. The dried-up sea bottom was cracked and fissured, as steely grey as the pictures I’d seen of the lunar landscape. The horizon shimmered, corrugated with heat haze.
    I glanced at Danny. He was staring, speechless. I realised that before him was the goal he’d set his heart on months back, when he first had the idea to journey south.
    “We’ll drive on another four, five hours, then stop for the night,” he said. “Over dinner we’ll look at the map, plan the next leg of the journey.”
    Edvard and Kat moved back to the lounge. I was pleased that Skull had not bothered to show himself.
    I mopped the sweat from my face. It was sweltering in the cab: the thermometer read almost thirty-five Celsius. Next to that dial was the outside temperature: fifty-five, hot enough to bake a man in less than an hour.
    Danny took the wheel and drove along the coast, parallel to the escarpment, looking for a shallow entry down into what had been the sea. Five kilometres further on we came to a section of the coast which shelved gradually, and Danny eased us over the edge, moving at a snail’s pace. Baked soil as fine as cement crumbled under the truck’s balloon tyres. We lurched and Danny eased back the throttle, slowing our descent.
    At last the land flattened out and we