Bar None by Tim Lebbon

face, teasing me. I remember his smile, his frown, the way his mouth turned up at the edges when he spoke, and I remember nothing of Ashley but the tears.
    I wonder if he inspires such guilt in the others. I know so little about them, really, even though we have spent weeks drinking and talking and reminiscing over old times. I know details of their past and their memories, but so little about them .
    The road remains quite clear for the next hour, and we only have to stop once for Jacqueline to nudge a wrecked car aside with her Range Rover. Its wheels scream as it is pushed across the tarmac, deflated tyres ripping apart like torn skin.
    We crest a hill and see the stain of Newport on the countryside miles ahead, the M4 motorway a textured line two miles away, and we decide to stop for something to eat and drink. We park on the side of the road behind an overturned lorry. Its doors have been forced open and a drift of orange trays has fallen from inside. They used to hold wrapped loaves of bread, but the produce has long since turned black and hard.
    We sit alongside each other on the crash barrier, facing away from the road, across the drainage ditch and up a steep hillside toward the wooded summit. The trees up there seem to have welcomed spring early this year, their leaves already forming a thick canopy that captures the sun. The hillside below them is spotted with a few dead cattle long since rotted to bone and hide. Previously trim hedges have exploded into the fields, daffodils are sprinkled across the hillside like a dusting of pollen, and here and there I see clumps of shoots springing from the ground. Size is difficult to judge without anything for comparison, but the shoots seem to be at least as tall as the dead sheep lying around them. I wonder what they are—not crop plants, for sure. Jacqueline hands me an opened tin of peach halves and I begin to eat.
    "We'll have to camp somewhere," Cordell says. He looks at the sky. "Way past midday already. If the M4 is relatively clear we may make the Severn before we have to stop. I don't want to travel by night."
    "Why not?" Jessica asks. She's unwrapping a smoked sausage, making sure we all have a fair share of everything.
    "Don't know what's out here," he says. And he's right. We all know that, because none of us questions him.
    "Maybe we could use a hotel," I say. "Or pull off and find an old pub, kip down there."
    "Maybe."
    We eat, enjoying the sun on the backs of our necks and the good food. Jessica opens a bottle of wine and we have a small glass each. I almost decline—I'm riding a motorbike after all. But a couple of mouthfuls won't do me any harm. I smile at her, offer my thanks, and Cordell says, "What the fuck is that?"
    A large shape is moving across the hillside, high up, almost at the level of the trees. It's huge, and for a second or two I think I see long segmented legs stretching out, limbs forcing it along, clawed feet ripping out clods of earth and flinging them aside. Then I blink and remember falling from the motorbike, and I know what we're looking at.
    "Deer," I say. "A herd of deer."
    "Here?" Jessica asks. She knows nature, and she knows we shouldn't be seeing what we are.
    I shrug. "It's been six months . . ."
    The deer are running across the hill, keeping close to the woods yet seemingly reticent about going inside. They surely can't hear, see or smell us from this far away, and our vehicles would blend in with the dozens of other cars and trucks stopped along this stretch of road.
    So I wonder what it is that has them spooked.
    "We could take a shot at them," Cordell says. "Damn, you fancy a nice venison dinner, guys?"
    "You'll never get close enough," Jessica says. She stands slowly, shields her eyes with her hand. "They're not supposed to be here," she says quietly, almost to herself.
    Something comes out of the woods. A darting grey shape, soon joined by three more. They spread out around the flock of deer, which flows and pulses like