The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands

by Sarah Brooks

She is so deep in thought that a thump at the window beside her makes her spit out a train curse and jump backward, colliding with a passing kitchen boy. “Crawlers!” he yells, pointing to the window, where a creature the size of a dining plate clings to the iron bars, its legs tapping wildly at the glass. A shell covers its body but not its pale-pink underside, from which mouths gape, opening and closing at irregular intervals. The kitchen boy grabs Weiwei’s arm as another one falls onto the bars, and another, until the whole window is a mass of tapping legs and gaping mouths. “They must be on the roof…” Though they are usually only on the wrecks, never on the train itself. “I’ll call for the gunner!” the kitchen boy shouts gleefully, scampering away toward the speaking apparatus. Weiwei takes a step closer but the sheer number of creatures has caused them to lose their grip on the bars and they are spinning away from the train, their legs curled into their shells. Moments later she hears gunshot and other pale bodies fall from the roof, clattering against the glass. By the time she reaches the sleeping carriage the under-stewards are betting noisily on the numbers falling from each of the windows. “Want to take your chances, Zhang?” one calls to her, but she shakes her head and clambers up to her bunk. It is the image of the creatures at the windows making her uneasy, she thinks, not the stowaway in her space beneath the roof. But she can’t helping thinking of Rostov’s wo...