I was just beginning to grow sick of the monotonous, verdant green outside the window when we drove into the ghost town. In some ways it’s strange, unnatural even, to be sick of what would at any other time be beautiful natural scenery. I’m sure some long-dead Romantic poet would find it the height of contemporary psychological decay, spurred on by consumption and urbanism and dark satanic mills. Yet the endless rolling fields, soaring hills, and rows on rows of trees that lined the road all seemed to be conspiring at that moment to tell us that we were alone, insignificant human specks surrounded on all sides by an uncaring universe. If the car breaks down here, they seemed to whisper as we passed yet another scenic vista, you’ll die of heatstroke before you reach help. We’d lost our satnav five hours in to a subscription expiring that none of us could figure out how to renew, and the intermittent cell reception meant that our map apps were an imperfect guide at best. Now the sun beating down through the windows even seemed to be overcoming the constantly-protesting air-con, though maybe that was just me.
That’s not to say that the scenery wasn’t beautiful, of course. The tiny towns we passed every now and then seemed ridiculously ugly, squat rows of prefab buildings and gleaming houses framed against the stern and unyielding impasse of the terrain and the endless varieties of plant life that surrounded us on all sides. They were patches of man-made grey and brown amidst the endless, rolling, monstrous green, and when we were gone it wouldn’t take long for the green to take back what belonged to it. In this respect, the town we finally stopped in to take a piss and maybe buy some snacks in seemed almost like an aberration, the cottages a little more picturesque and the white town hall facade somehow more dignified compared to the villages we’d been driving through all day as we headed towards the Scottish border. Chang-dol hums some unknown tune as we turn into the parking lot outside the off-licence convenience store with two other cars already waiting. The temperature difference almost knocks me off my feet as I step out, and Alice gives an audible groan.
“Some fucking heatwave, am I right?” I mutter, but Chang-dol’s already turning back from the door, waving us back in to the cool safety of the car.
“It’s closed. On a Tuesday afternoon.”
“Well, maybe it’s some kind of emergency. Or maybe they’re just closed on Tuesdays.”
But the other store at the other end of the town is closed too, and the pub is shuttered. It takes another ten boiling minutes to check a few houses at random, but none of them show signs of people being around. A few well-baked letters hang halfway out of a letter flap.
“Strange. Maybe they left to flee the heatwave.”
“Not so strange,” Alice mutters. “The heat management situation in these towns is notoriously bad. No AC, cramped floorplans, crappy insulation, they’d be cooked alive in a few more weeks.” Sure enough, outside one of the houses we could see a large Amazon package half-torn in transit, promising some kind of portable AC unit that the owners never collected. Kneeling down to inspect it, I realise that the cardboard is too boiling to even touch—
There’s a scuttling noise and what sounds like a bark, warped and distorted like it’s coming from a cheap bluetooth speaker. I wheel around, but all I can see is Alice and Chang-dol looking back at me, confused.
“Is there a dog—”
Then I see it. A small quadruped robot in a furry shell that was clearly designed to resemble some sort of hunting dog, slowly dragging itself out of a nearby hedge. Bits of fake fur trail along its wake, and the supposed eyes of the dog can barely be seen underneath the melting, deformed plastic. A small plastic tongue, half detached and its dye bleeding into the fur around it, gives the head a strange red patch. There’s another tinned bark, and then a recorded message starts playing. All I can make out over the terrible quality and the heat is an angry male voice.
“INTRUDERS— PRIVATE PROPERTY— LEAVE IMMEDIATELY— INTRUDERS—”
As the message finishes I see that it’s raised one of its legs, black fabric jerking and glittering under the sun. In the fake paw is a small metal stiletto, which is all it takes for me to panic as the dog-like creature lumbers into something approximating a run, headed straight for us as the message plays again.
“INTRUDERS— PRIVATE PROPERTY— LEAVE IMMEDIATELY—” But we’re already running, running for the car, the sun beating down on our legs and our inappropriately sunscreened arms, our phones slabs of lava in our pockets. It’s only when we’re behind the door that we realise the dog has long since stopped, collapsed in the street, wisps of smoke trailing up from its overheated core. The last thing I see as we drive away from the ghost town is an expensive leather collar around its neck and a name: “Winston”.
Then we’re gone, back into the green, back into the heatwave of summer 2027, back towards our search for the last person who might have a way out of this living nightmare.