“Steve, you’re going to be ok mate, hear me” The muscley man spoke “When we get you home, we will get James to sort you right out” unsure of who he was trying to reassure, himself or his friend, blood was soaking his shirt turning it from white to red. “Someone help!”
A tall dark-haired female answered
“There’s nothing to be done, he’s dead already”
The big man shot her a frosty stare and gazed round at the others. Steve was still screaming, but the blood was bubbling in his throat.
“She’s right” Marcus spoke “He’s dead already”
Marcus made eye contact with Steve, his one eye flickering in and out of consciousness, the screaming stopped, as if he understood the dire situation, he was in.
“We can put him out of his misery” the woman said
The big man shook his head, cradling Steve in his arms, there was no other way, but he did not want to have to accept it.
Drew took out the Kimber, that recently he had been carrying as it did not make sense that Marcus held all the guns. Holding the barrel, he handed the handgun to the big man.
“He’s your friend”
Marcus stayed on guard in case something crazy happened in case this big unit of a man turned on Drew, but instead he took the gun and brought it down to rest on Steve’s temple. He was crying, shaking. He closed his eyes as he tightened his finger around the trigger.
“I can’t do” He said pulling the gun back away, wiping a tear from his eye with the back of his huge hand. “He’s been my friend since before all this shit went down”
Steve grabbed the big man’s wrist and pulled the gun back towards him. He looked him in the eyes, and nodded to him, he knew what had to be done, he tried to mouth to him.
“It’s ok”
The big guy closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Putting Steve out of his misery. Another male in the group approached and placed his hand on the big man’s back, comforting him. The big guy shrugged it off and in a flash was on his feet. Pointing the gun at Drew. Marcus pulled his rifle up creating a stand-off.
“Are you guys Knights?” the big man shouted, alternating his gaze between Drew and Marcus.
Neither of them replied.
“Talk or I’ll blow your fucking head off” he thrust the gun towards Drew “Talk!”
Marcus took aim
“What do you want me to do boss?”
Drew was perplexed, he had just helped this guy out, now he was going crazy at him. Marcus stepped closer. The other two stepped back.
“Fucking talk, you have five seconds… One”
“Boss?”
“Two”
“Boss, what are we doing here?”
“Three”
The other male spoke
“Omar! stop this madness! These guys just saved us”
From outside a voice boomed
“Mr. Thomas, no one needs to die here today, return the stolen supplies, and we will let your people live” the voice came from the back of the house, in the garden. “Oh, and hand over the female, I promise she will go to a good home”
Outside were two men. Drew could see them out of the window. A short, fat man, balding must have been in his fifties. And a young lad with a Charlton Athletic baseball style cap pulled down over his brow, long blonde hair waving about in the breeze behind him. They both had military issue SA80 assault rifles.
“We open the door they will kill us” The other guy said “And we aren’t giving them Frances”
They all agreed
“My patience will NOT last forever Mr. Thomas”
“Who are these people?” Drew asked the room
Omar replied
“Knights”
Drew looked over to Marcus taking control of the situation,
“Head upstairs, find a window overlooking the garden, if they don’t do as I say put a bullet in this mother fuckers’ leg”
“Times up Mr. Thomas”
Drew was crouched as low as possible by the back door, not directly behind it, just to the side, the men outside might decide to put some rounds into the door.
“Hey asshole” Drew shouted “Mr. Thomas ain’t going to do shit. You can forget about that”
Caught off guard and hearing a voice he did not recognize the man outside spoke
“Who are you?”
“Let’s just call me Mr. Thomas’s advisor, put your guns down, and your ammo and head back the way you came”
The guy sniggered
“Why would I do that now?”
“Because we will shoot you”
“With what? You have no firepower”
Drew repeated his demands
“Try me”
“Fuck you” was the guys’ answer.
There was a crack as a .308 caliber round cut through the air, it entered through the front of the man’s right knee, ripping through flesh, cartilage and bone, and exited out the back, bringing him to the floor under his own bodyweight.
“Up to you, big man or the next ones coming for your head” Drew shouted
The other man was much younger, still maybe in his late teens. He was terrified literally he was shaking in his boots. His life was in the hands of his superior who was currently howling and holding onto his splintered knee.
“Make the choice”
He threw the gun away from himself and was scrabbling around his pockets trying to find the ammo he had.
“Good choice” said Drew “Now your buddy too”
The young lad just stood still; vacant, blank face frozen to the spot. The guy on the floor stopped screaming long enough to try to focus the young lad.
“Kid, listen to them, drop year gear” he said, but the guy didn’t move “Wilson, drop your fucking gear god damn it”
Marcus was looking through his scope. Switching his gaze from one to the other, downstairs he could hear Drew still barking instructions at them.
“Wilson, you stupid fuck. Drop it!” the older man was pleading with his young companion. Tears started streaming down the young lad’s face.
“Your pathetic” the older man yelled at him as he started trying to crawl along the path. All this noise had drawn some walking corpses, into an alley behind the fence of the back garden.
The guy had crawled over to the gun, which he had dropped, but Marcus was distracted with the situation brewing in the alley. He could see them pushing on the fence, leaning it into the garden.
“Wilson, you’re a fucking liability” the guy ranted spitting as he shouted “I told Jared you weren’t ready, I didn’t want you. I said you would be the death of me” The guy swung his arm round with the assault rifle “Fuck you Wilson!”
with that there was a gun shot.
The fence collapsed and the reanimated flooded into the garden. Drew ran out of the back door and into the garden, as did the other male in the group. They went to collect the guns, and ammo. Marcus was picking off the dead as they got closer, to buy some time. They checked the older man, a single bullet wound to his skull his eyes open in a death stare. He was not yelling no more. The man with Drew picked up the gun and ammo that was discarded, whilst Drew went through the dead man’s pockets, A lighter, a map, and a combat knife. Again, military issue.
“What shall we do about him?” the other man from the group inside asked Drew, whilst pointing at the lad still stood there, frozen, scared out of his mind. Imminent death surrounding him.
Drew ran to the poor kid and grabbed him to pull him back towards the house. The young lad stumbled, the man from Omar’s group sprinted over and assisted Drew and between them they managed to bundle the kid through the back door, just before the flesh eaters could get to them.
Panting heavily, they let go of the young lad, he scurried across the floor on his hands and knees, and sat in a corner, pulling his knees up to his head, rocking back and forth.
The man from Omar’s group rubbed the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and offered his hand to
Drew.
“I’m Tommy” the man said “Tommy Crawford" Drew shook his hand firmly “Thank you”
5
The kid was still slumped up against the wall, arms folded, head down. The five of them were silent, no one asking the question they were all thinking.
“Maybe we just leave him here?” Frances eventually spoke up, looking around at the others in turn.
Marcus nodded in agreement.
“We can’t do that; we just risked our lives for him” Tommy answered.
Drew looked out of the window, the garden was rammed with the undead, the body of the man had long been consumed and they were now pressing themselves up against the window. Their rotting, decaying bodies smearing on the glass, their discoloured skin and eyes, tormenting the senses of the living. Groaning and howling with the inability to communicate. Drew wondered if he would ever wake up from this nightmare.
Omar opened the young man’s backpack and turned it out onto the dining table, emptying the contents. Marcus and Frances rooted through the stuff to see if there was anything of use. They found, a thin navy-blue waterproof jacket, four clips of 5.56 x 45 assault rifle ammunition for the two SA80’s they had acquired. A small black crowbar, a swiss made multi-tool pocketknife, a meticulously neat diary or a notebook or something, a one litre water bottle and black lynx wash bag.
The boy looked up to see his belongings being scrutinized, he was not sure what was going on, he started getting fidgety and anxious.
Drew walked over to the table and picked up the book, it had a title written on it A SQUIRES HANDBOOK he turned the page, and in childlike handwriting was the boy’s name. He flicked through the pages, it was some sort of training log, as if he was serving an apprenticeship, there was sections for, combat, map reading, first aid, surveillance and maintenance and engineering. But must disturbingly at the end of the course, the motivation the reward for partaking was the opportunity to ‘select your woman’
Drew kept looking through the book and he came across a column written by the ‘RULER’ of the knights rambling on about how much good they do in the world. And bring peace to all those people who wish to find it. It went on and on for a few pages. Drew scanned it word for word, until he came to a section that really took his attention.
“Each and every one of you squires, have the opportunity to become fully fledged Knights, and take your rightful place amongst our growing society, to bring peace and prosperity to our people. To become like your peers, to be looked up to, to be admired and respected, to be great leaders, like our two grand masters. Mark who is embarking on a great crusade to broaden our empire, to reach out to other communities further up country. And to Jared, who with his stellar work at the outpost ensuring our safety for the future”
Drew marched over to the kid
“Where is this outpost?” he asked calmly the kid ignored him, so he asked him again, “Where is this outpost?”
The kid stood up and pushed Drew out of the way and paced past him.
“Oi, put that back!” The lad Wilson shouted at Tommy who had joined the table, he had his back to the kid. He approached the table and grabbed Tommy by the bicep, pulled him around to face him. And swung uppishly with his right fist, taking Tommy by surprise.
Tommy fell to his knees, blood running from a split lip. He pressed his hand to his mouth to find the cut.
Marcus grappled the attacker, bending him over the table. And in one swift motion twisted Wilson’s right arm behind his back forcing it up towards his shoulder blades. Creating excruciating pain. He was clearly predominantly right-handed from the way he threw the punch, so immobilizing that hand was the obvious choice.
“What are you playing at kid?” Marcus yelled into Wilson’s ear
The boy was hollering in agony, as Marcus levered his arm up further.
“He took… ahh.” he could not finish his sentence.
“Hold him” Tommy yelled as he had just got back to his feet and was furious
Marcus pulled the kid off the table and opened his body up for a gut shot. Tommy pulled his arm back to unleash his fury.
“Wait” Drew interrupted
He had always been blessed with leadership skills and people saw him as an authority in his social circles before the plague, and hopefully it was to continue, both men complied immediately without question. Drew walked over purposefully to face Wilson.
“He took it!” Wilson barked at Drew, twitching his head in Tommy’s direction, indicating the apparent culprit “I don’t care about the rest of the stuff, but not that!”
Drew nodded to Marcus to let go of the kid. Marcus did as he was requested.
“What did they take son?” Drew asked
“My ring” Wilson replied “Well, my dad’s wedding ring, I hid it in my wash bag”
Drew turned to Tommy “Give it to me” he demanded,
Tommy shrugged his shoulders and dug deep into the back pocket of his skinny Levi’s jeans, and revealed a faded gold wedding band. He rested it on his thumb and flicked it towards Drew.
The ring bounced off the table, and Drew snaffled it in his right hand. He held it up to what light there was in the dingy room, holding it between his index finger and thumb. It was full of dents and scratches, from relentless everyday activities for presumably many, many years.
“Why do you feel the need to hide this item?” Drew asked politely
“Because it is deemed a contraband item, sir” Wilson answered “Squires are not permitted any personal effects”
Drew could make out some engraving inside, he squinted and could read for all eternity hopefully, Drew thought that eternity was over before all of this.
“We have to give all personal items to our masters, as we have not earned the right to be individuals” continued Wilson
“This is absurd, everyone is entitled to be an individual and memories of the past is all we have now, and that is worth hanging on to! what sort of future are they trying to build?” Drew was dumbfounded.
“I’m not permitted to share that opinion sir” said Wilson in a monotone and almost robotic voice.
“I see you have removed your first name from your handbook”
“Squires are not permitted the use of a first name, that’s only for full knights and our master’s sir”
Drew shook his head in disbelief, how could these people treat the next generation like this, they are forcing the life and humanity out of these kids, yes they need desensitizing through the horrors of the new world, but to take the emotions out of all that is left is a crime against humanity all by itself.
“Do you enjoy being a squire?” Drew asked
“I’m not permitted to…”
“This is bullshit kid!, you are permitted to do anything you want” Drew ranted “You do not have to conform to any regulations and requirements that is the way the world is now. It is not, I say jump you say, how high? Not anymore that is modern slavery”
Drew held out his hand to him. “I am Drew”
Wilson slowly shook his hand, Drew passed him back his father’s ring as their hands met. seemingly confused, thoughts flooded his mind. What does this mean? Am I free? What happens now?
“Thank you, sir,” he smiled “My name is Connor”
Drew shook his hand firmly
“Enough of the sir bullshit too”
Drew walked Connor through to a living room and sat him down on a brown leather reclining sofa, and then took a perch on an armchair that was part of the same set. It was new could not have been bought long before all this happened. Omar came and stood by observing what was being said.
“This outpost? Where is it?” Drew quizzed him
“I’m not sure exactly, outside of town somewhere, I think on the road towards Newbury?” Connor replied “I’ve only been there the once, that was this morning, today was my first day on field operations, that’s the main office for the field teams”
“So, could you take me there?” Drew asked, “Do you rem
ember how to get there?”
“Yes of course, but they are very heavily armed with lots of military weaponry”
Drew was preparing his next question and the look on his face must have given away what he was about to ask next. Omar interrupted.
“That’s a conversation for later”
Drew turned his head to him as if to say, what do you know about that? but Omar shot him a stern look. There was more going on here than meets the eye.
“What about Jared? What can you tell me about him?”
Connor was pondering, unsure what to say, he did not really know he had only met him the once when he became a squire, during initiation. He had heard stories about him, some favorable others not so.
“I don’t know, why do you ask?” he finally said
Drew reached into his pocket and pulled out the black voice recorder, which he had carried around every single day since Sarah had been taken from him. He pressed play and the voice began to speak, the same lines Drew had heard over and over again. He would never forgive himself; he will never let go until he finds her.
“He has my wife”
6
She opened her eyes as she felt a nudge against her bare shoulder, stirring her from another dream which she longed to be reality, her eyes adjusting focusing on the man leaning over her. Pushing his glasses back onto his nose as they slipped down. He spoke softly to her, his fresh minty breath streaming over her face, toothpaste, now such an item is a luxury.
“I got to go to work, Remember, if anyone comes to check on you, make sure you chain yourself back up ok? We don’t want you getting into trouble”
He left her on the double bed whilst he folded up his sleeping bag from the floor, and shoved it back into its bag, pulling a drawer out from under the bed and hiding it away.
After The Turn: Redemption Page 3