World War Moo by Michael Logan

her arm brushed the guttering, which creaked and swayed. The view outside was just as cheerless. Across the overgrown lawn sat the building she’d seen on her way in. It formed a large part of the pier that ran out over the water on a lattice of warped and worn wooden struts. Scudding layers of gray cloud and the houses and shops of Arrochar across the loch were visible through the charred skeleton of the building. Underfoot, weeds and clumps of moss sprouted from what appeared to be rails set into the concrete. The rails led from the ruined pier to semicircular stone structures with heavy steel doors. Hangars, perhaps.
    â€œWhat is this place?” she said.
    â€œIt was a torpedo testing station, shut down in the eighties and left to rot.”
    â€œWhy do you stay here? I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s a bit skanky.”
    â€œLots of reasons. It’s remote. It’s easily defensible. And it has a rather appropriate symbolism considering what we do.”
    â€œAnd what do you do?”
    â€œLet me show you.”
    Fanny followed the tracks to one of the hangars and rapped on the door. A steel plate slid open and a cloud of smoke puffed out. It held the same sweet, pungent fragrance that used to emanate from her brother Bryan’s room when their parents were out. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles appeared, from behind which lidded blue eyes peered out. The glasses darkened in reaction to the sun outside.
    â€œAre you ready?” Fanny said.
    The man took several deep breaths and said, “I know you are here and it makes me happy.”
    Bugger , Ruan thought. Just my luck. This is some crazy cult.
    As Fanny and the man talked in whispers, Ruan pulled out her phone and opened her messenger app to send a quick note to her best friend, Bridget. “Had a crazy night,” she wrote. “Just got more mental. Walked into a den of FREAKS! More later.”
    She hit send and, as she always did, allowed herself a brief moment of hope that she would see the two little ticks that showed communications were working again and her friend was listening. When the clock icon indicated the message had gone nowhere—just as in the hundreds of other messages in her one-sided conversation—she squeezed the phone so hard the plastic case creaked.
    She blinked rapidly, took a step backward, and considered running for it. For all she knew the hangar contained a sacrificial slab and dozens of robed acolytes with sharp knives, ready to sacrifice her to some freaky god. On the other hand, these were the only uninfected people she’d come across, and Fanny had saved her life last night. Metal scraped as a bolt was drawn back and Ruan stepped inside, fingers tightening around the hilt of her sword. The man who’d answered the door shuffled backward until his head butted up against the curved hangar wall. Instead of a robe, he wore a red and blue tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He was enormous, towering over Ruan by almost a foot, and had a bulky frame to match. The sparse covering on top of his scalp became a waterfall of blond hair that cascaded down his back in a long ponytail.
    â€œThis is Scott McDonald,” Fanny said.
    â€œRuan,” she said, holding out her hand.
    He flinched, as though she were offering him a dead mouse lollipop instead of a handshake. Fanny stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder.
    â€œIt’s okay,” she said. “You can do it.”
    These people are seriously weird , Ruan thought.
    Then again, it was little wonder after all they’d been through. She’d developed her own strange habits, such as enjoying the taste of Pedigree Chum with fish oil and chicken, a tin of which she’d discovered at the bottom of a skip around the back of a supermarket at a particularly desperate moment. Perhaps it was just that serendipitous combination of hunger and thirst, but the moist, meaty chunks had electrified her taste buds and, as a