by Ryan Casey
The tracker at Paul’s side kept on blinking.
It didn’t stop blinking until Matt reached it.
Lifted it from his miserable dead body.
Tightened his grip on it with one hand.
Rifle in the other hand.
And then he walked into the night, through the trees, and towards the sound of the voices and commotion in the distance, Cara and Bert by his side.
It was time to retrieve what he’d come for.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Noah knew things weren’t going to be easy the second he stepped back into the campsite grounds.
It was still dark, but morning was just about breaking. The skies were a little lighter, that shade of blue between dark and light where the world seemed braced for another day. The kind of light he used to see after he’d stayed up all night watching movies with Jasmine. They’d sit by the Velux window, stare out at the tops of the houses, at the empty roads, at the allotments and the fields in the distance, and everything just seemed on pause. Everything just hung there, totally still, totally peaceful.
But right now, there was a very different feel to everything.
There was a very different stasis.
Everyone was awake. Standing outside their tents and caravans. Some of them looked over at the woods, over towards Noah, Kelly, Zelda, and Barney with fear in their eyes. Especially when they saw the rifles. Three guards came running over, guns in hand. Pointed towards them.
“Drop those weapons!” one of them shouted. “Drop them! Right this damned second!”
He was a big guy. Bald. Noah had seen him around a few times, and he didn’t look the most welcoming of guys.
And as much as Noah wanted to stand his ground, as much as he wanted to heed Zelda’s advice about taking this place if they had to… cooperation seemed more important right now. More valuable. More fruitful, potentially.
“Please,” he said. “You need to hear us out.”
“We’ll hear you out when you explain yourselves. When you tell us where the hell Bill’s gone. And what the hell is happening here.”
Noah looked at Zelda. At Kelly. Saw the pair of them still had their weapons raised. Pointed. Not the look they needed right now. Not if they were going to get anywhere here.
“Lower them,” he said.
Zelda shook her head. “Not a chance.”
“Zelda,” he said. “Lower it. Right now.”
She looked at him through a glared gaze.
And then reluctantly, she lowered her shotgun. Just a little.
“Shit range anyway. But if I die, it’s on you.”
The three of them stood there. Barney perched by Noah’s side. Panting. Whining a little. Like he sensed things were bad here. Like he knew just how precarious this whole situation was, too.
“Something happened,” Noah said, looking at the guards, at the people, at nobody in particular. “The man. Paul. The prisoner. Something… something happened with–”
“Bill,” the bulky bald guard said. “What the hell happened with Bill?”
“Bill’s dead,” Zelda said.
A chorus of gasps. Of cries.
Noah gritted his teeth. “Might want to let me do the talking. Your bedside manners aren’t the best.”
Zelda took a few remarkably confident steps forward. “Your prophet Bill turned out not being such a good guy after all.”
“Don’t move another step this way.”
But Zelda kept on walking. “He sold us out to that snake, Paul. Captured Kelly and Noah here. Went to drag them back to where they came from. If it wasn’t for me, they’d be in some kind of hell right now. I’m sorry to break it to you. But Bill’s not the hero you want him to be. Or rather… he wasn’t.”
Noah shook his head. “Zelda, you’re going to get us all killed.”
She looked back at him. Shotgun in her hands. “Look at their faces, man. We’re dead anyway. Might as well go down guns blazing.”
Noah looked around, and he saw it right away.
The fear in their eyes.
The anger.
The sadness.
There was no winning them over.
There was no coming round.
They’d made their minds up.
Noah lifted his rifle.
Pointed it at the guards.
Saw them lift theirs in turn.
A stasis.
A stand-off.
“You need to believe us,” Noah said. “I’m not doubting Bill was a good guy. But what he did… we had no choice.”
No response from the guards.
Agitation growing.
Anger growing.
Gunfire imminent.
“Things don’t have to go this way,” Noah said. “People don’t… people don’t have to die. We can move on from this. We can—”
“Drop your weapons,” the guard in the middle said. “That’s the only way we move on from this.”
He wanted to.
He wanted to so much.
But he knew he couldn’t do that.
He kept his rifle pointed.
Kept it raised.
Knowing the awful truth about all this.
As people he recognised looked over at him.
Tim.
Eddie.
He didn’t want bloodshed.
He didn’t want slaughter.
But he knew the importance of this place too.
And he didn’t want to die.
He glanced at Kelly. Saw the regret in her eyes. The fear in her eyes.
Then he looked at Zelda.
More confident.
More self-assured.
More at ease.
He looked over at Eddie, and he saw something he didn’t recognise.
Eddie looking at him like he’d fucked up.
Usually the other way round.
Now Noah knew how it felt.
“One more chance,” the guard said. “Drop your weapons. Get down on your knees.”
But Noah knew it was already too late.
He knew there was no hope.
He gritted his teeth.
Thought of Jasmine.
Thought of the pain.
Thought of the hell he’d been through in the compound.
Thought of all of it.
And then he narrowed his eyes and tickled the trigger—
A blast.
Over his shoulder.
Then more of them.
Like fireworks.
He thought it was the guards at first.
Then he thought maybe it was Zelda, but it didn’t sound like a shotgun.
Or Kelly.
But…
No.
It wasn’t any of them.
He ran. Zelda ran. So too did Kelly and Barney, all of them taking cover, all of them hiding behind a tent just to the left.
He turned around, and his stomach sank.
Because up ahead, he saw three figures heading their way.
Dressed all in black.
Head to toe in body armour.
Rifles in hand.
Built like brick shithouses.
The leader—a bulky brute—stepped forward. Stopped, as he looked at this camp.
“Well hello there,” he said. “You’re going to listen, and you’re going to listen very carefully. If you do, nobody has to die. How does that sound?”
Noah knew these people.
He knew exactly where they were from.
They were from the compound.
And they were here for him and Kelly.
They’d found them.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Noah stood by Kelly and Zelda’s sides, rifle raised, Barney between them, and stared at the onlookers from the compound.
There were three of them. Their black armour blended in with the woods behind them. Morning was approaching, the beginnings of the dawn chorus starting to emerge.
These three guards. Two blokes and a woman. They were armoured to the hilt.
Their weapons looked bigger and badder than anything Noah had ever seen. Like something out of a video game.
And as much as Noah, Kelly, and Zelda stood there, rifles and shotgun raised, and as much as the Colebridge guards stood their ground too, Noah didn’t fancy their chances.
These people looked like professionals.
And it terrified Noah.
The man leading the group stepped forward. He was bald. Built like a bouncer at a premium nightclub. An absolute bruiser, an absolute brute. Noah had seen him before. Just once, when he’d been in that room with Dr Watson, having his throat swabbed. He’d stood by the door, rifle in hand. A reminder not to try anything. Not to push his luck.
He walked with such confidence. Heavy feet crunching across the grass. He looked at the people of the campsite indiscriminately. Like he was scanning each and every one of them. Like the damned Terminator.
“Sorry to alarm you like this,” he said. “Looks like you’ve been dealing with a few little problems of your own. But I’m here for a reason. A friend of mine. Paul, he was called. He was abducted by some very bad people. Some very dangerous people. And if you’d help me return those people, we can all just move on with our happy lives.”
Noah’s stomach sank. This was literally the worst time for him to start spouting shit like that. The whole of the campsite was against him already after what’d happened with Bill. They’d hand him over in a heartbeat.
“And what makes you so sure they’re here?”
The voice surprised Noah. He looked around. Saw the Colebridge guard standing his ground. Pointing his rifle shakily back at this beast.
The man walked towards him. Slowly. Didn’t even have his rifle raised.
He stood there. Looked at him. Bright blue eyes glistening. Smile stretched across his face.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said.
Then he nodded.
Out of nowhere, something zipped through the air.
Silence.
And then a crack.
A trail of blood spurted out of the guard’s head.
He dropped to the ground before even realising what’d happened.
Shrieks. Screams. Cries.
“Now,” the brute said, cool as anything. “I’ve got more snipers like that positioned just outside of this camp. And believe me, as much as I don’t want any trouble, I will bring trouble upon this place if I have to. No qualms about that. But it’s not my preference. My preference is that no more of you people have to die. No more of you have to fall like your friend here, who I’m sure was a straight-up fella. But anyway. Noah. Kelly. They are the two we want. Hand them over. Or more will die. Until there’s none of you left. And if you don’t believe me.”
He looked around into the darkness.
Nodded, once more.
Another shot.
This one piercing through the air.
Burying in the neck of another of the guards.
Sending him to the ground, choking.
More screams picked up. Women tried to take their kids back inside, but the other two brutes just lifted their rifles, made sure they stopped.
“Noah and Kelly,” the brute said. “They’re the two we’re here for. Shall we set a time limit here? How about a minute? A minute to get your shit together, or this place and everyone inside it dies. How’s that sound?”
Noah looked around at Kelly as they crouched behind that tent. He wanted to see something in her eyes other than fear. He wanted to see assertiveness. Confidence. A look of a plan.
But instead, he just saw fear.
He knew time was running out. He could see people turning. Looking at them. Soon, somebody would give them up.
They didn’t have long left.
They had to make a decision.
And then he saw Eddie.
Eddie looked over at him. Well, he thought it was at him for a moment.
Then he realised it was Kelly he was looking at.
With a look Noah had never seen in Eddie’s eyes before.
Love.
“Nobody gonna comply here?” the brute asked. “Seriously? Don’t make us kill anyone else here. Don’t be stubborn. What’re those two worth for you, really?”
Noah glanced back at Kelly. Heart racing. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to give himself up. He wanted to run away. Because these people. They were against him anyway. He owed them nothing.
But then they didn’t know the full truth.
They were just lost.
Confused.
He had to do something.
He had to act.
He took a deep breath.
Stepped forward, rifle in hand.
“I’m Noah,” he said.
The brute turned around. The other two guards kept their focus on the rest of the crowd.
And then that brute walked over to Noah. Smile on his face. Stepped right up to him. Beamed widely at him.
“Well, damn. It really is you, isn’t it? I’d recognise that ugly face from a mile away.”
Footsteps by Noah’s side.
“And I’m Kelly,” she said.
The pair of them stood there. The brute looked like his Christmas had come early as he snapped handcuffs around the pair of them. And it worried Noah. He had no idea what shit they were in for when they got back to the compound. But it couldn’t possibly be good.
“See?” the brute said. “Wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
“Just take us,” Noah said. “We’re the ones you want. The rest… leave them alone. They’re good people. They don’t deserve to die.”
The brute tilted his head.“You’re right. And really, that’s an honourable stance you’ve got there.”
He looked around at all these people. Scared. Terrified.
“Problem is, they’ve seen far too much here for us to let ’em live.”
It all happened so fast.
He nodded.
Once to the left.
Another to the right.
And then the fireworks exploded.
Bullets pierced through the air.
People fell, one after the other.
Guards.
Innocent people.
Animals.
The two other brutes lifted their rifles. Fired indiscriminately.
And Noah could only watch as Barney ran off into the darkness.
As Eddie disappeared behind a tent.
As Zelda fired back, and fired until her shotgun stopped blasting.
He looked into the brute’s smiling face as he lit this place up, and he felt an empty void inside.
“Looks like you don’t always get your own way, Noah. Right?”
Chapter Forty
Eddie held his head in his hands until he was absolutely sure the gunshots stopped, and even then, he kept himself curled in a ball, not wanting to open his eyes, not wanting to look, not wanting to see, not wanting to know.
He had no idea how long he lay there in the grass. He couldn’t hear anything other than the birdsong. The sound of crying. Of wailing. Some of those wails went on, carried by the warm breeze. Others died out. The residents of Colebridge. Slaughtered. One by one by one.
He lay there, sweating, heart racing. He could still hear footsteps. Every now and then, begging, and then a gunshot. He knew the people from the compound were still here. Going through these people, one by one. He hadn’t heard any barking for a while. A few yelps of dogs. He thought of Barney, and he cried. He was the last thing any of them had left of Jasmine. He hadn’t been able to help him. Hadn’t been able to protect him.
As he lay there, totally frozen, the visions of blood and guts and brains filling his mind, he thought of Noah, too. His best friend. He had no idea what’d happened in the woods with Bill. He knew something must’ve happened, ’cause when he’d woken up, Kelly wasn’t by his side anymore, and he had the worst, groggiest headache known to man. Thought he’d heard someone come in in the night for that matter, too.
Noah had give
n himself up for the community.
He’d sacrificed himself for the good of everyone else.
And then they’d just slaughtered everyone.
And then there was Kelly…
A knotting in his gut when he thought of her.
A sadness, after the elation last night.
He’d spent a night with her. And as much as she might tell anyone otherwise, no matter whether she got anything from it or not, whether it was just about release or sympathy or whatever, she’d made him feel good. She’d made him feel better about himself than he’d ever felt in his entire life.
And now she was gone, too.
He wanted to get up. To stand. To fight.
But he couldn’t move a muscle.
He couldn’t do a thing.
He lay there a while longer as more of those footsteps passed by. A part of him wanted them to come over here. To put a bullet in his head. ’Cause as afraid of death as he might be, he could think of no other option now. Staying alive was a life of guilt. A life of facing up to his losses.
And he wasn’t sure he could do that.
He heard footsteps right above him.
Froze.
Waited.
Held his breath and thought of Mum and Dad and Noah and Kelly and—
“Eddie?”
He opened his eyes. The dim morning light crept in. He recognised that voice. He was afraid of it, but he recognised it.
He looked around and saw Zelda standing over him.
She didn’t have her shotgun. A big gash covered her head.
But she was here.
He wasn’t alone.
“Come on,” she said, as abrupt as ever. “Get to your feet. We can’t stay around here. It’s not safe.”
Eddie looked around. He was behind one of the caravans. Blood was smeared across it. Beside him, a muscular man lay dead, blood seeping out of his neck. Someone Eddie spoke to just earlier that day.
“Come on. The longer you look, the longer it hurts.”
Eddie forced himself to his feet. Everything felt like a dream. Life was a haze.
He looked around at all the death. At the bodies lying on the ground. At the crows swooping down, pecking at them. It didn’t matter how much Zelda told him to look away. He couldn’t. All this death; it surrounded him.
There was no looking away.