“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?” Lucy said. “At Crow’s Nest.”
“A day,” Donny said. “Two at most.”
Lucy nodded.
“What about after that?” she said.
“Then we go back,” Donny said.
“All of us?” Lucy said.
Donny turned to look at her. She wore the same expression she always did. Calm, relaxed, unaggressive. She was sharp, smarter than he realized. If she had picked up on his patterns of thinking, who else had? He was going to head back but he wasn’t sure it was wise to take everyone back with him. Better for him to make the journey, check how the community was going, then return for the others afterwards. He simply couldn’t sit here on his hands like this.
“I’ll go,” Donny said. “I’ll need you to watch over the others.”
By the others, he was really only referring to his kid brother Jamie. Whether Lucy understood this or not, he didn’t know. But she nodded.
“Jamie won’t be very happy about you leaving him behind,” she said.
“He’ll understand,” Donny said.
Eventually.
65.
JUST A FEW short hours ago, they’d been enjoying the mass marriage ceremony and accompanying feast. Jamie was sure he’d tried every dish, every drink, everything Cook had spent days preparing. And none of it had been as tasty as the stew Fatty had knocked together in thirty minutes.
Maybe it was merely starvation driving his taste buds crazy. He was shocked to find he even enjoyed the vegetables! The water and meat combined to form some kind of thick liquid that tasted dreamy. It infiltrated the vegetables, soaking deep into them, replacing their bitter flavour with its own. They tasted like delicious meat too. If all vegetables tasted this good, Jamie would have licked his plate clean after every meal.
Cook could certainly have used Fatty in the kitchens. She tended to over cook some things and undercook others. Eating her meals was always a challenge. It was a logical outcome due to the fact Cook had lost her tongue a long time ago.
“It would be better if we had all the ingredients I needed,” Fatty said.
“Any better and I would have accused you of witchcraft,” Jamie said. “This tastes better than anything Cook ever made.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Fatty said with a grin.
Jamie doubted he would get much of a response from her now. He’d seen her take a couple of bullets in her ample stomach.
“Besides, I’m much better at eating food than making it,” Fatty said. “That’s why Cook refused to take me on. I was more likely to eat the ingredients before she got a chance to use it.”
“She’s a good one to talk,” Lucy said, lounging back on her hands to stretch her stomach to its full capacity. “She was a lot bigger than you. She probably ate all the food too.”
They sat in a circle around the fire. It’d been built in a hole in the ground. This prevented anyone from seeing the flickering flames from a distance. Just then, Lucy caught sight of a blinking green light passing overhead. She eased herself up onto her elbows.
“What’s that?” she said. “One of those rocks you told me about during the Fall?”
“No,” Jamie said. “It’s a satellite. From before the Fall.”
“For all we know, there could be millions of those asteroids floating around up there,” Fatty said, “just waiting to bump into another planet.”
“There are so many stars,” Lucy said. “Do you think there’s other life out there?”
“Probably, “ Fatty said. “The chances are good there’s something out there other than us.”
“I wonder if we’ll ever meet aliens,” Lucy said.
“I’d rather we didn’t,” Jamie said. “It’s the last thing we need right now. I just want to go home.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine, back to normal when we get back,” Fatty said. “The Reavers will be long gone by the time we get there. We’ll stay here a couple of days and then go back.”
Back home. To his chores. Back to thinking about Nester. Jamie still found himself thinking about her most days. How it had been his fault she’d died, how he would have done things differently if he’d had the chance.
“Is everything okay?” Lucy said.
“Sure,” Jamie said. “Why?”
“You have that look you get sometimes,” Lucy said.
“What look?” Jamie said.
“When you look sad,” Lucy said.
Jamie smiled. That was sad too.
“I’m not sad,” he said.
“Yes, you are,” Lucy said. “And you look even sadder now, by pretending you’re not.”
Jamie threw up his hands.
“I can’t win,” he said.
That made Lucy smile. Seeing her smile like that made him smile too. Good moods really were infectious.
“No,” Lucy said. “I suppose you can’t.”
Jamie had never opened up about Nester with someone before, about what had happened to her. Except to Theresa. But then, she’d forced him to open up. It wasn’t the same as volunteering to share. Theresa was an expert at making people talk about things they didn’t want to discuss. It was her job. To choose to spill his guts to someone left a sour taste in his mouth. What if she laughed at him? He decided to go slow, to couch his emotions with a thick buffer of ambiguity.
“I was thinking about my friend,” Jamie said.
“Nester?” Lucy said.
The name sounded strange coming out of Lucy’s mouth. Like a stolen object from a foreign nation. It belonged where it had come from, not in hostile lands.
“Yes,” Jamie said.
“She died rescuing me,” Lucy said.
“Not really,” Jamie said. “She died trying to find Bernard.”
“But she wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t come across me in the tree,” Lucy said.
“She died because of me,” Jamie said.
He’d said and thought those words so often they didn’t have the same sting anymore. It was a fact he’d absorbed. They were a part of him now. They might as well have been written in his DNA.
“It doesn’t matter if I tell you it’s not your fault, does it?” Lucy said.
“No,” Jamie said. “But it’s nice to hear now and then.”
“It’s not your fault,” Lucy said. “It was the Rages that killed her. The Fall. Not you.”
Hearing those words did make him feel better, even if he couldn’t bring himself to accept them.
Donny sat by himself to one side, staring into space. He hadn’t had a single bite to eat. Jamie used the ladle to scoop some of the stew into a spare bowl and crossed to Donny. He offered it to his brother. Donny didn’t take it and kept staring in the direction of the Mountain’s Peak. Jamie, saddened, but not slighted, sat the bowl down.
“How do you think they’re doing?” Jamie said.
Donny didn’t answer. Jamie understood when he wasn’t needed. He returned to the rest of the group.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “We should probably go to sleep.”
They doused the fire, washed the pots, pans, and plates, and packed them away. Jamie didn’t know when they would be heading back to the commune. He cast a look back at Donny’s beaten shadow. Judging by how Donny was feeling, not long.
66.
JAMIE OPENED his eyes. He was in one of the Crow’s Nest bedrooms. They’d decided to sleep in the same room rather than separately. Their stated reasons were to keep warm, that it was easier if one of them awoke after hearing something outside. That way they could fight together and stand a better chance against their aggressors.
The real reason was a fear of loneliness. They needed to band together, to feel like they weren’t alone in the world, that some semblance of the old world they knew was still the same. That they had each other.
The mats they’d placed on the floor and slept on were surprisingly comfortable. Like hard beds, which was what Jamie prefer
red anyway. He felt at his back, where he thought he’d felt something, something that had forced him to wake up. He rubbed that part of his back but found nothing there.
He noticed something else.
A figure at the door. For a moment, it looked like someone was attempting to creep inside, to sneak up on them while they were sleeping. Then the figure stepped outside. Jamie couldn’t make out the figure’s features but he would have recognized the way the figure moved anywhere.
Jamie got up and approached the door, shutting it behind himself.
67.
JAMIE CAUGHT up to Donny as he crested the compound’s entrance and began to head down the steep incline on the other side.
“Donny?” Jamie said. “Where are you going?”
Jamie knew there was only one place he could have been heading.
“Go back to bed,” Donny said.
“No,” Jamie said. “If you go, we’ll follow.”
“No, you won’t,” Donny said.
He was bigger than Jamie, always had been. It wasn’t only due to age. Donny had developed faster, bigger than the other kids his own age. He took after his father in more ways than one. Being so much larger, with a ten-year gap between them to boot, meant that Donny could have raised his fists and used violence against his little brother to make him do what he wanted any time. God knew Jamie deserved it sometimes. But Donny had never raised a hand to him. He was a good brother. Not that Jamie would ever admit that.
“You’re going to leave us?” Jamie said. “Leave me?”
“You have food, safety, and water,” Donny said. “You can take care of yourselves.”
“Not as well as we could if you were with us,” Jamie said. “Dad said we should come here and wait. Together.”
“You didn’t hear what Dad said,” Donny said. “You weren’t there. He told me to get you here, to Crow’s Nest. I’ve done that.”
“But not to abandon us immediately afterwards,” Jamie said.
“I’ve done my duty,” Donny said.
Jamie was hurt. It made him angry.
“Is that what I am to you?” he said. “An obligation? Something you have to take care of? Then wash your hands of?”
Donny’s confidence broke. He might be a soldier, an instrument of war, but he was also an elder brother.”
“Stay,” Jamie said, eyes pleading. “Just a little longer.”
Donny broke eye contact and looked at the ground, shaking his head. He looked up at Jamie, hands on his hips.
“I don’t have time for this,” he said, turning to leave. “Take care of the others for me. I’ll be back soon.”
Jamie watched his brother’s fleeing back. Powerful emotions bubbled inside him. Fear, concern, anger. A sense of loss. One rose above the others and beat them down, seizing control of Jamie’s throat. Desperation.
“I can’t lose you too,” Jamie said.
His voice was low but carried well off the hard rocks and still night air. He was surprised at the words that had come out of his mouth. Long unspoken words they both understood on a deep level.
“You’re not going to lose me,” Donny said.
“If you go, the Reavers might catch you,” Jamie said. “You’re one man. There are loads of them. You won’t stand a chance. Let Dad take care of them. He’s been taking care of the community for years. He can handle it. He doesn’t need to worry about us.”
“You don’t understand,” Donny said. “You’re just a kid.”
“A kid without a mum,” Jamie said. “But I do have a big brother. You’re supposed to take care of me.”
“And Dad needed me and I left him there to take care of everything by himself,” Donny said.
“He isn’t alone,” Jamie said. “He has the council, the commune. He’ll be all right. And he told you to leave. To get me and the others somewhere safe. And protect us. I don’t think taking off like this would make him very happy, do you?”
Donny wore a mask of confusion. He wasn’t sure what to do. He was always bullheaded, convinced he knew what was right. If Jamie was seeding a worm of doubt in his mind, he should press the advantage.
“We need you here,” Jamie said. “To lead us. Like Dad leads the commune. Who knows what might happen. We never thought we’d lose Mountain’s Peak but we might have. Even if we beat the Reavers, it’ll take years to recover from their attack.”
Donny’s eyes shimmered. He looked away. He didn’t want Jamie to see what he’d already seen. Jamie did him the courtesy of looking away, pretending he hadn’t seen. There were some things a brother shouldn’t see.
Jamie approached his elder brother. Unsure what to do. They were never the most touchy-feely of siblings. He reached for Donny’s backpack and took it from him. Donny’s response was to let him. Jamie had won. He carried the bag back toward the compound.
Unseen, watching from inside the room where the others were sleeping, Lucy gently shut the door.
68.
THERESA HAD been in tough situations before. Everyone who’d survived the Fall had been. She’d survived that ordeal, so she figured she could survive this one. Her opponents were regular humans this time. They could never carry the same terror an unstoppable wave of Rages could.
She’d heard the stories of Reavers committing mass murder, rape, and other things so depraved she didn’t even want to imagine them. Everyone had heard the rumours. She’d learned through hard experience that rumours rarely lived up to the fear that fueled them.
“I won’t do it,” a pretty girl called Candace said. “I won’t.”
She stomped her feet like a petulant kid as if this were her decision to make. It was very much out of their hands.
“What choice do we have?” a middle-aged woman called Jackie said. “We’re their property now. They can do what they like with us.”
“Not me,” Candace said. “I’m with Bernie. Not these. . . these animals!”
The Reavers had imprisoned the majority of the commune’s women in the library that doubled-up as the school. They didn’t have enough kids to divide them up into different years, so they had educated them together. The room was crammed with books, already turning dusty with lack of use. It wasn’t exactly an impressive collection but it was a start.
Someone had been busy building a new book shelving unit when the marriage ceremonies had kicked off. They had clearly expected to return and continue building, so hadn’t bothered to tidy up after themselves. They’d left their tools behind. A few small nails, a wedge of rock they’d used as a hammer, and a screwdriver.
“There must be a way out of this,” Candace said. “There must be.”
“Just close your eyes and try to enjoy it,” Jackie said.
“Enjoy it?” Candace said. “Are you insane? How could anyone possibly enjoy it?”
“It’s going to happen anyway,” Jackie said. “Might as well make the best of a bad situation. Shut your eyes and dream of your beloved Bernie. It won’t hurt much. Only at the beginning. I intend on making it as easy on myself as possible. I suggest you do the same.”
She spoke so matter-of-factly, so resigned to the situation that Theresa’s ears pricked up. She’d clearly had similar experiences before. No one else seemed to pick up on it, instead focusing on their own dreadful situation. Theresa could understand, even if she didn’t agree with their outlook. She couldn’t just sit back—or lay back as the case might be—and let these men have their way with her. Not without a fight. Theresa picked the screwdriver up and slipped it up her sleeve.
The door lock was unbolted from outside. The women leapt out of their seats and edged back as the door opened. Like sheep before the farmer.
A woman sailed into the room—having been thrown—and landed in a heap on the floor. Only Theresa bent down to aid their fallen comrade. Karen. She’d been the first of them they’d taken. Her lip was busted, blood running down the corner of her mouth and chin. Her skirts were torn, slit up the front. Tufts of her own hair sprinkled the should
ers of her dress, torn out by the root.
“You didn’t need to hit her,” Theresa said, eyes burning coal pits.
“She wouldn’t stop screaming,” a Reaver said.
Theresa didn’t make the obvious argument. If they hadn’t been doing what they had to her, she wouldn’t have screamed in the first place.
“Take note, ladies,” the Reaver said, casting an eye over the assembled. “This is what happens when you struggle and fight. She was lucky to escape with her life. Getting in the way of a Reaver and his hard-on will never end well for you. Who’s next?”
The women whimpered, pulling away. They were terrified. Their worst nightmare was about to happen to them. And there was no escape. They needed a strong example to follow. To show them that although this was a bad situation, it was not the end, and they could comport themselves with dignity.
“Me,” Theresa said, standing and handing Karen to the others. “I’ll go.”
“A willing participant,” the Reaver said with a grin. “The boys will like this one.”
He took Theresa by the arm. She pulled it out of his grip and stared him in the eye. He moved to seize her again, thinking she was about to make a break for it. Instead, she stood firm. The Reaver backed down.
“I can walk by myself,” Theresa said.
“You won’t afterwards,” the Reaver said.
Theresa had to agree with him there. She felt the cool rod of the screwdriver at her fingertips. She would in all likelihood be dead.
69.
THEY HEADED down the corridor that led outside, then hung a sharp left. They passed a dozen Reavers stuffing their faces with stolen food from their stores. She wondered how long they would survive after the Reavers had their fill. They were a stupid, dumb lot. It was a shame their leader wasn’t or else they might have won this battle.
After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Page 14