31 Days of Autumn

by Fallowfield, C. J.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘I laid some landmines along the track in case anyone tried to approach. The noise would have given us time to get away on foot.’

  ‘To wander the Welsh frickin’ wilderness? Have you watched the film Deliverance? Who knows what inbreds live out here in the middle of nowhere. Great idea,’ I replied, rolling my eyes.

  ‘It’s Wales, you dickhead, not the Australian outback. About fifteen miles the other way is a pub where I left another van in case we needed to resort to plan B for an extraction. Honestly, I’d rather have done that than come back this way, but I wasn’t prepared to hear you whinge as we walked on foot all the fucking way there. Now shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear another word from you from this moment until we get to London. If I do, I’ll remove your tongue and nine of your bloody fingers, except the index finger you’ll need to log in and transfer my fucking money.’

  I swallowed hard, figuring now wasn’t a great time to tell him that I actually only had eight fingers and the other two digits were thumbs. He slammed the door shut and walked about ten yards ahead, then dropped to his knees and pulled out a screwdriver. About five minutes later, he stood up again and dusted off his knees, then chucked what looked like a round flat saucer into the forest on the right. I did as I’d been told and kept quiet as we slowly made our way, stopping another two times for him to deactivate the rest of his charges. He was seriously fucking crazy. What if he’d forgotten where he’d planted one? He’d kill both of us in an instant. He climbed back in and cricked his neck, then his knuckles, and started the engine again.

  ‘That was the last pit stop we’ll be making before London, so you’d better have an answer by then, as right now I’m thinking watching you suffer is going to give me far more pleasure than a measly ten fucking million.’

  He put his foot down and I gritted my teeth as I was jerked from side to side and back and forth as he bounced his way along the track. I looked behind me at Ellie, wondering if she was still alive, then suddenly gasped and whipped my head to the right as Alfa yelled “Fuck” and slammed on the brakes. Everything unfolded in slow motion, like bullet time in The Matrix. His hands left the steering wheel. He reached to undo his seat belt with one hand and open the driver’s door with the other. The scent of pine trees filled the van, like someone had made a mistake and removed the whole of the plastic wrapper off a pine-scented car freshener, instead of sliding it a little at a time over the course of a few weeks. The nicely heated air in the van was displaced by the cold pouring in, but it wasn’t half as chilling as the sight of Alfa abandoning me, throwing himself from the van as it skidded and shuddered along the dirt track. I closed my eyes as I heard an explosion and gunshots. I felt weightless as the van left the ground, rising up into the tree line, the force snapping my head back into the headrest. As we slammed back down onto the ground, my head was forced forwards, tearing something in the back of my neck, right around the time I pissed myself and the smell of smoke filled my nostrils.

  Dan

  ‘How much further?’ I whispered, as Andy and I continued to weave our way through the trees, just out of sight of the track.

  ‘Another four hours at the rate you move,’ he whispered back, without turning to look at me. Considering we’d only stopped to take a leak a couple of times in the last sixteen hours, and every step I took had the dread inside me building higher and higher, I was impressed that I’d kept up at this pace. Andy suddenly held up his fist, his signal to stop moving immediately. I saw him nodding. Wellings had taken over as the scout, keeping about a mile ahead of us. He was obviously feeding something back.

  ‘Who’s closest to the co-ordinates James gave us? … Chris, can you and Jamieson make it in time? … Fuck, fuck! Try, someone needs to be there in case she’s in the vehicle and makes it. Goodwin, Burton, I want you on the track to shoot out their tyres if they make it through.’

  ‘What? What’s happening?’ I demanded, not giving a crap anymore about whispering. Andy’s tone had me seriously worried. He turned around and when I saw how pale his face had gone, I felt my stomach sink.

  ‘James took a compass off one of the guys he killed and managed to swipe a landmine from a stash they had in the back of a Navara. He planted it in case they drove after him, but memorised the co-ordinates for going back for Ellie. Charlie must have overtaken James before he laid it, as he made it through safely, but Wellings has heard the sound of a vehicle approaching at speed.’

  ‘You’re telling me they’re leaving with Ellie in a car and have no idea that they’re heading towards a goddamn landmine?’ I yelled, my stomach twisting in knots.

  ‘Chris is trying to get to it, to deactivate it before they reach it.’

  ‘Fuck,’ I yelled. I bolted to my right, forcing my way through undergrowth as I tried to reach the track. If I made it there, I could run faster and try to catch Chris up.

  ‘Sir, fall back,’ Andy ordered. I ignored him, as well as the pain in my overly tired legs, and heard him swear as he chased after me. I skidded down a mossy bank onto the dirt road and kept running, the sound of Andy’s feet pounding behind as he caught me up. I rounded a bend to see two of our team on the edges of a straight stretch, their guns aimed, waiting, Chris and Jamieson running ahead. I suddenly heard it, the sound of a vehicle coming towards us.

  ‘Chris, fall back, you’re not going to make it,’ Andy yelled behind me. The purr of the engine got louder, and suddenly a black vehicle appeared around the corner. There was a sudden screech of brakes and Chris dropped to his knees and raised his weapon. The driver’s door was flung open and a black figure flew out, bouncing on the ground and rolling. I heard gunfire, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the van as there was a loud explosion and it lifted off the ground in a cloud of dust and slammed back down again, smoke billowing from underneath. Seconds later, orange flames starting to lick the sides.

  ‘Ellie,’ I roared, pressing forward as the guys ahead started running towards it, too. Jamieson, who’d been ahead of all of us, was already at the passenger door, trying to yank it open, but it looked like it was stuck. I could see someone in the passenger seat, but they didn’t seem to be moving. ‘Ellie?’ I yelled.

  ‘Goodwin, Burton, back up Chris,’ Andy ordered as the two of us pounded towards the van side by side. They darted off to the left, skirting it and disappearing around the corner. The flames were getting higher. Jamieson had his foot on the side of the van, still trying to get it open as the person in the front slowly started to lift their head. It wasn’t Ellie, I could see dark hair, unless exhaustion was playing tricks on my eyes. ‘Jamieson, get out of there, it’s about to blow.’

  ‘He’s still alive, I’ve got time,’ he yelled in response. He? If it was a he, where was Ellie? The air in my lungs from running so fast was burning as quickly as the van.

  ‘No,’ Andy roared. ‘Think of your wife.’

  I saw Jamieson saying something to the guy in the van, then he turned and started running back towards us. I screamed Ellie’s name when Andy yanked on the back of my jumper, hauling me back and slamming me down onto my backside. I lifted my head with tears in my eyes as the flames engulfed the van and the man inside started to scream. It was the most awful sound I’d ever heard, even worse than Moira’s screams as we’d been tossed around in the rolling Landrover. My eyes finally locked with the man who’d once been my friend, years before Ellie and I had even met. Seconds later, the van exploded, along with my heart, and the blast knocked me onto my back.

  I slowly came around coughing and choking, the acrid black smoke filling the air around us as well as my lungs. I sat up, completely numb and stunned, and stared at the wreckage in front of me. She was gone. Everything I’d done, that everyone had done, to try and save her had all been for nothing. I felt empty inside as I just listened to the loud ringing in my ears and watched the smoke dancing around me. I was suddenly aware of movement on either side of me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of the c
arnage ahead. I didn’t have to as Andy’s face appeared in front of mine, and he started shaking me. I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was trying to say. I felt myself being lifted under each arm and dragged to the side of the road, then water being forced down my throat. How had this happened? How had it ended when I was so close to saving her? After everything we’d been through, from the moment we met to sitting here now? There’d been only metres between us, but it may as well have been the Atlantic. Had she seen me from the back of the van? The thought that her last images might have been of me running to save her wasn’t even a tiny consolation to me. Not when she’d just been ripped from me and taken my heart with her.

  ‘Sir … Sir … Dan! Snap out of it!’

  I blinked as the sound of Andy’s voice saying my actual name finally registered. ‘You shouldn’t have stopped me,’ I whispered.

  ‘You’d have been killed if I hadn’t.’

  ‘At least I’d have been with her,’ I replied, hearing the defeated tone in my voice.

  ‘She wasn’t in the vehicle. Whatever the hell that Damien’s real name was, his last words to Jamieson were that he’d only hired four men, and to tell you that he was sorry. He confirmed that Ellie wasn’t in the vehicle. He thought she was, but when he looked, moments before the explosion, apparently it was just a pile of sleeping bags and a blanket in the back,’ he stated. I moved my eyes to find his, not sure I’d heard right. He nodded. ‘She wasn’t in there, Sir. Chris has the driver, he shot him in the back of both knees as he tried to take cover in the trees. He’s the last one of them alive. He’s not talking yet, but if we can’t find her at the bunker, we’ll damn well make him talk. Can you stand up and walk? We’re nearly there.’

  ‘If there’s a chance she’s still alive, yes,’ I nodded. They both helped me up and gave me more water, but my emotions didn’t change. I’d got my hopes up too many times in the last week, only to have them dashed. Until we found her, I wasn’t going to allow myself to feel anything.

  ‘You defy my orders again and I’ll shoot you in the back of your knees. Wellings has found trip wires in the forest, so it seems they set a perimeter to warn them if anyone approached. We need to move slowly in case there are any booby traps, do you understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Walk behind me, try and step where I step, Jamieson will follow you.’

  ‘Ok,’ I nodded and we made a start. We were walking at Oliver’s pace, but now that I knew there were no men left to torture Ellie, if she had made it, it was a pace I was comfortable with. I was steeling myself for the worst, so the slower we went, the better. If she wasn’t in the van, they’d realised that they didn’t need her anymore, which meant that she was dead. I was sure of it.

  ‘Yes?’ Andy stated, pressing his ear. ‘I can see it and I can see you up ahead … no, wait. Check Dean can land safely, then radio him in.’

  ‘I’ve seen the smoke, too. He’s torched the cottage?’ Jamieson asked. ‘That’s what I’d have done.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andy confirmed, ‘but luckily the bunker itself wasn’t built underneath, it’s a few hundred yards away, the entrance is hidden by undergrowth. I’d warrant it’s not the first time they’ve used this site.’ He looked around at me, surprised when I said nothing and made no move to race ahead. Everything was suddenly becoming very real.

  When we made it to the site of the burning cottage, I saw a guy in black combat gear tied to a tree. He looked evil, with a thickset brow, broad jaw, glaring eyes, and a long, jagged red scar down his right cheek. I walked over and squared my shoulders as we eyeballed each other. Much as I wanted to kill him for everything he’d put us all through, and for my promise to Dean to make him suffer, death was an easy way out for him. Andy didn’t stop me as I clenched my fists and rained punch after punch down on him silently. I didn’t feel anything, no pain in my knuckles at all, as I pulverised his face into a bloody, bruised, and swollen mess. He didn’t make a sound either, all he did was spit out blood and fragments of his broken teeth. He was one tough son of a bitch. I had no idea how long I’d been hitting him when Andy and Chris stepped in and pulled me back.

  ‘We could do with taking him back alive, Sir, for answers,’ Andy advised. ‘And while I’m sensing that you don’t want to look in that bunker in case your fears are realised, on the off chance that she’s still alive, we need to. If she isn’t, then we’re bringing her home, where she belongs.’

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and steeled myself for the worst. He led me to the top of the steep concrete stairs that disappeared into the ground, swallowed up by the darkness below. Andy had cracked some glow sticks and thrown them down, but they still couldn’t be seen, so Chris went with him as they slowly made their way down, placing more sticks on the steps for guidance and to check no more traps had been left. I started thinking of the different ways I’d break the news that Ellie was dead to everyone waiting back home. However I told them, everyone was going to cry. No one was going to accept it. They were all going to grieve and feel her loss. I didn’t want to. The moment I cried tears of sorrow again, I was going to be dragged into a pit of despair that I knew only too well, one that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to dig myself out of again. My children needed me, more than ever.

  ‘Sir, get down here now. She’s here and she’s alive,’ Chris’s voice echoed up the stairs, breaking the silence. I looked around at Jamieson, who was standing with me, to see if I’d heard correctly.

  ‘Thank God,’ he smiled, patting me on the back. He cracked a stick and handed it to me. ‘Go.’

  My hands started shaking and my heart, which had felt as if it had stopped beating for the last half hour, suddenly made its presence known, hammering against my chest as I threw myself down the stairs, not even registering how dangerous they’d be if I lost my footing. My world was suddenly coming back into focus. All of those family celebrations, outings, and holidays that I’d seen in our future were a possibility again. I’d be able to hold her, make love to her, watch her turn grey as we grew old together. Nothing had ever sounded more appealing. Chris was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, a black corridor stretching ahead.

  ‘It’s not pleasant in there, don’t be embarrassed if you’re sick. The bastard locked her in with the two dead bodies.’

  ‘But she’s ok?’ I demanded.

  ‘Andy’s checking her over now to make sure it’s safe to move her. She’s delirious, with a weak pulse, but she’s alive. Go.’

  I ran down the corridor and approached a heavy steel door that had been swung open. The smell that hit my nostrils as I entered the cold and damp underground cell was the most foul odour I’d ever experienced. I could see a faint light over on the right, and in focussing on it, I nearly tripped over a body coated in blood on the floor. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat from the sights and smells that assaulted my senses. Jesus, how could he have left her in here? Andy suddenly stepped towards me and put a hand on my chest, stopping me from approaching the mattress I could just make out in the corner.

  ‘She’s got a nasty infection in her leg from the bullet wound, she’s filthy and severely dehydrated and may not even know that you’re here. We need to move her and get her to a hospital as soon as Dean lands. Are you up to carrying her out of here, because she’s fragile. If you drop her ...’ He shook his head.

  ‘I’m up to it,’ I said forcefully, pushing him out of the way and dropping to my knees. I shook my head as I scanned her lying there. ‘Ellie, what have they done to you,’ I choked as I saw the state of her. I pulled the frayed hat off her head and shook mine. Her normally lustrous blonde hair looked dark with grease and blood from a cut on her temple. Her porcelain skin was covered in even more grime than Oliver’s had been. Her full heart-shaped lips were dry with deep ruby cracks. Yet in this moment, even when we were surrounded by the stench of death and faeces, she’d never looked more beautiful to me, because she was alive. I bent down and gently kissed her dirty, dry
lips. ‘I love you, Ellie. You’ve no idea how long I’ve been waiting to tell you that again. I’m taking you home, baby. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you, but I need you to be strong for me just a bit longer, because there’s no way I can lose you now.’

  I wiped some overdue tears from my eyes, fighting the urge to break down right here. I had my purpose again. She needed me. I smiled and carefully lifted her into my arms and stood up. She’d lost weight, she was as light as a feather. I smiled as I thought I heard her whisper my name. I followed Andy as he led the way, moving slowly, leaving the darkness behind and rising up towards the blinding sunlight, the noise of Dean’s helicopter blades whirring above slicing through the air. I looked down as I thought I heard her say something else, and saw tears trickling from her eyes and what looked like a smile forming on her lips. She wasn’t out of danger yet, but she had a fighting chance now.

  As we left the last step and walked out onto the grass, the other five men ran forwards to help me settle Ellie onto the waiting stretcher. I was reluctant to let her go, but Andy urged me to allow them to tend to her before we moved off. Letting go of her was so painful, after searching for her for so long. I sat back on my heels and let them do their jobs. They cut a sleeve off her jumper, then cleaned her arm with alcohol to put in an IV to rehydrate her. They then cut one leg of her jeans away as well to remove her soiled bandages. Not one of us was expecting the resonating crack of a gun firing. Chris threw himself on top of Ellie, as I was knocked onto my back and smothered by Andy while voices shouted. When he finally got off me, I stood up and followed his astonished gaze to the tree where the team leader had been tied. Half of his skull was missing, blood oozing down the remains of his face. Dean was standing with a gun still held in his outstretched hands, which were shaking. He slowly looked around at us, pale as a ghost, as we all stared back stunned.