by RR Haywood
A conflicting sense of emotions run through him. Emotions that previously he wouldn’t have allowed anywhere near the surface. He never allows feelings to overrule his intelligence. The Bossman taught him those valuable lessons. Now those emotions are coming up. Too many things have happened in too short a space of time.
Was it a mistake to leave the compound? Was it a mistake to come here? He casts that thought aside. Life is life. It’s done and nothing will undo it. Besides, life at the compound would always have been finite.
He wants to get Lenski and leave. They could go somewhere else. Just the two of them. Howie was right in that Maddox’s bravery is beyond question. Maddox knows he can fight. He knows he can keep them both safe. He also knows this world just became very small and there is no place he can go that Dave will not find him. How would he even get out? The idea sounds simple. Get Lenski and leave but that means using a boat which means people will see. The fort is an island now. Even if he took a boat and went the other way out to sea they will still come after him.
Maddox aims for a boat filling with people to be carried to the fort. The animated conversation ends as he steps in. The talk of the fight finishes. The discussions, the opinions and the men passing judgement on what they would have done simply stops as he takes position on the prow of the small vessel.
As the boat moves out he suppresses the urge to tell them he was in that fight. He was right there. He was part of it. He helped defend the fort. He doesn’t say that. His pride refuses it. His ego denies it. Instead he stares ahead to the fort steadily coming closer. Small conversations start up again. He lifts an arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. The heat is incredible. He squints to stop the glare from the water hurting his eyes.
As the boat grinds gently on the beach so he jumps off and pauses at hearing someone mutter scum. Everyone holds still. He looks back at the faces and smiles politely before turning to trudge across the beach and through the open gates as the armed guards both make a point of looking away.
He goes through and blinks at the sight that Howie and the others saw yesterday and that dent of his pride comes again. The interior looks so different now. It’s chaotic but it’s not filled with corpses or burnt debris or kids with guns. He walks on towards the police offices and imagines what it must have been like for Lilly. A surge of anger at Sierra, Skyla and the crews for doing what they did. Grief too. Mourning and loss. He feels ashamed at losing control. He feels ashamed that a sixteen year old girl is doing what he failed to achieve. Too many feelings. Too many things happening in too short a space of time.
‘You back,’ Lenski looks up at the door as he steps inside. The air still smells of cleaning materials. Pine and lemon. Chunks in the wall from the grenade detonations.
‘We need to talk,’ he says to Lenski while looking round at people he does not know. Men and women who have come forward to help stare at him silently. The atmosphere changes. The conversations that were underway as he entered the room end.
He walks back out the room. Unable to think of how to respond or what to say. The conflicting emotions render him mute.
‘What wrong?’ Lenski asks, stepping out from the offices.
‘Not here,’ he says, looking at her. She is impossible to read. Her features naturally mask whatever thoughts are in her mind.
‘We go,’ she goes to walk past him. He falls in at her side, glancing across and noticing she looks different. Colour in her cheeks. Her skin has taken the sun. He looks down with surprise at her legs and only then realises she is wearing cut off jean shorts and open toed sandals. A simple vest top completes her outfit but the change is noticeable and for the first time in his life he feels a prickle of worry and insecurity. She is a beautiful woman. She smells nice too. Is that from shampoo or perfume? He wants to ask but stays quiet.
She glances across when he looks forward. His clothes are blood stained. His boots are dirty. His skin shines from sweat. That utter supreme aura of confidence has slipped too. She also stays quiet. Neither of them are people who discuss things in public.
She shoulders the door open to an empty room and waits for him to pass inside before closing the door. A grime-encrusted window lets enough light in. She stays quiet, watching him closely. He stops in the middle of the small room and turns back to face her. An urge inside to cry that he suppresses and swallows with barely a flicker showing.
‘What happen?’ she asks, her tone as hard as ever. ‘They attack yes? They die now? You kill them? You work with Howie now yes? They accept you? Did this work? How many come here? What Howie say to you?’
A barrage of questions. He blinks and tries to find focus to reply and explain.
‘I’m going back out with them,’ he says instead.
‘What? Why do this? Howie ask you yes? He want you fight with them?’
‘Yeah,’ Maddox whispers.
‘He see you good at the fight. He see this yes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘This good yes? Howie see you good man. He see you no do the bad things.’
Maddox nods and looks down at the floor. He knows it’s pride preventing him being open but he cannot overcome the obstacle in his head and admit a weakness or that something is not working the way he wanted.
‘When go?’
‘One hour.’
She blanches and lifts her eyebrows. ‘One hour? Why?’
‘The er…’
‘You bring them yes? Howie say this before. They attack if Howie here. Howie not here they no attack. This reason yes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When come back?’
‘I don’t know, Lenski.’
She blanches again and stares hard at him. He never uses her name. He never says her name in conversation like that. ‘What wrong?’
‘S’nuffin…’ he clears his throat, instantly ashamed at the street slang in his voice. ‘I mean nothing…’
She frowns, narrows her eyes and cocks her head over. ‘One hour yes?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, still looking at the ground.
‘Take clothes off.’
‘What?’ he looks up quickly.
She nods at him and steps forward while pulling her top over her head. ‘We sex yes? One hour…your clothes have the blood. I get clean clothes after. We sex now…’ She wedges her top over the window, making an improvised curtain to prevent any idle eyes glancing in. Maddox looks at her. The rifle still in his hand. The bag still on his back. The sweat still shining on his face. She turns and smiles a warm grin that chases the iciness from her features. He tries to smile back but it’s slow, weak, wan and full of pain, hurt and pride all at the same time.
She takes the rifle from him. He slides the bag off. She takes that too. He pulls his top off.
‘You wash yes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘With anti-bac yes?’
‘All over,’ he says.
‘This good,’ she says, undoing the button on her jeans shorts that she tugs down. ‘You fight them?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, working at his belt then remembering his boots are still done up. He drops down to work the laces.
‘What like?’ she asks, toeing her sandals off.
He shrugs, ‘like fighting…hot…’
‘You kill them? I mean you? You kill them?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The blood. It go on clothes…it go in mouth?’
He stands up from pulling his boots off and drops his trousers that fall quickly from the weight of the pistol. ‘I’m immune.’
Lenski pulls her head back in a very slight show of surprise, ‘like Howie yes?’
He shrugs and pulls his boxers down, still unable to summon the words to explain. ‘Yeah…like Howie…’
They stand naked in front of each other in an empty room in the wall of the fort. Too many emotions. Too many feelings. Too many things happening in too short a space of time. At that second, he wants only to hold her. To feel someone close. He has to go back out with Howie and
be with more people that hate him. Right now, he wants tenderness and compassion. He wants love and understanding.
‘We sex now,’ she says.
He shrugs, ‘yeah.’
They kiss. The kissing invokes the natural reactions within him but the floor is dirty and there is no bed or chair. Instead, she turns round and places her hands on the wall. The act between them becomes almost sterile. An act for the sake of it. Sex for no other reason than he is going away to fight so they should have sex. He doesn’t want it. She’s not that bothered. They do it anyway because neither can communicate the feelings inside to tell the other. Too many things have happened. Too many emotions and feelings. She breathes harder. He does too. She moves into him. He moves into her. Thoughts whirl in his mind that threaten to overcome any shred of lust and the folly of man once again shows. He becomes more afraid of wilting, of losing his erection and not finishing than he does about expressing the true worry in his mind. She senses it and turns to look over her shoulder. That look makes him more afraid so he tries harder. She frowns. He sees that frown and the sweat runs down his face.
He finishes quickly and for the most fleeting of seconds the endorphins take away everything else. He bends forward, draping over her back to kiss her warm skin. Barely a few seconds pass and she moves to ease the cramp in her legs. He stands back. She turns and smiles, her face flushed and sweaty. She kisses him. He takes the kiss. The post-coital chemicals fade and again he wants to hold her, to just hold her and be close. She pulls away and starts to dress.
‘I need toilet now.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, bending to pick his boxers up.
‘Is good yes?’ she asks him, smiling.
‘Good,’ he says, smiling back.
She dresses quickly and moves to the door. ‘I get new clothes for you.’
‘Thanks.’
She pulls her top from the window, puts it on and moves to the door without another word spoken. In the space of a few minutes it feels as though he just lost her. They just had sex but it was cold and empty. It was the physical act and nothing more. She goes out and walks past the window. She doesn’t look in and smile but walks on and never before has he felt so crushed and alone.
Fourteen
Everyone does something. Everyone sweats from the crushing heat and feels the bloom of headaches in the backs of skulls that signals the pressure building for another storm.
‘…and it’s really important to keep it clean, especially in this weather. The moisture in the air from the humidity and the dust and grime in the air can mess it up…’ Blowers and Heather both turn to see the funeral pyre ignite with thick black smoke curling up into the sky.
Half an hour is all it took for the traveller men to get the bodies stacked with dry wood, douse the lot in petrol and set it on fire. More of them scrub the road with stiff brushes and detergent, or soapy water as they call it.
Nick washes the Saxon. Clarence cleans the GPMG. Blinky and Mo take the ammunition cases brought over from the fort to stack inside the vehicles. Howie loads rifle magazines in the rear garden. Cookey loads pistol magazines. Dave and Roy work to put new edges on their bladed weapons.
The rest work at the patio table, going through the list to pick out the people closest to the south coast to give Heather and Paco the best chance at finding them.
Reginald watches Lilly while holding the secrets of the world in his head. It was the way Pea, Sam and Joan made straight for her when they got back. It caught his attention. People do that with Howie. They have that thing that makes other people want to follow them no matter where they are going. They are both aloof and they both have easy smiles and polite tones but underneath the surface they also have a vicious power that subliminally or sub-consciously transmits to those around them. It makes you want to be on their side as opposing them is a step into something you will not survive. Howie is dark and brooding. Lilly is cold, almost clinically so. Howie has dark hair and dark features. Lilly has blond hair and blue eyes. The difference in their physical appearance is stark but the similarities in their manners are striking. The way Howie looks up and follows the conversation. Passive and laid back. The way Lilly smiles at the conversations going on and smiles politely.
Reginald realises, at that very second, that if Howie falls it won’t be Clarence, Paula or Blowers who take his position. It will be Lilly. That realisation brings forth a fresh worry. He is about to take the strongest pieces on his half of the board and leave the queen undefended.
Perhaps Mohammed should stay behind and be to Lilly what Dave is to Howie. Reginald deliberates for a fraction of a second then concedes that leaving Lilly at the fort is the right thing tactically. If Howie’s group are killed then she will remain to continue the game against the other player so why risk both Generals?
It raises another question and set of problems. Reginald will guide his team in the direction he surmises is the right one, but if Howie’s team does fail then Reginald will fail with them and Lilly will be left here not knowing what to do.
Reginald also accepts that Howie’s idea for Heather and Paco to gather the immunes and bring them here is a good one. He had already considered it. His reaction, at the time, was simply because someone else suggested it before he did. Which irritated him a little.
The plan forms. The way ahead starts to show clear. Howie and his team will move out to be seen and play the game. Heather will find the immunes and bring them here but Lilly must also play her part. Reginald thinks. He thinks a hundred or more thoughts at the same time and takes each single concept and applies it to every other concept. Everything is linked now. Every strand is woven like a tapestry.
A decision made from an intellect that grows more confident by the hour. Howie is the leader but to do this, to win the game and play at this level means Reginald has to be able to make decisions without seeking consent from Howie. He sighs heavily and closes the notepad open in front of him as though to signal he has finished reading. He rises from his chair, taking his mug with him as he goes.
‘I shall make a peppermint tea,’ he informs everyone.
‘Reggie’s brewing up,’ Cookey says brightly.
‘Coffee please,’ Paula says.
‘Coffee for me,’ Marcy adds, holding her mug out.
‘Cheers, Reggie,’ Howie says.
‘Indeed,’ Reginald says, pausing to look round with a comical expression. He breathes in and shows a build up to replying. ‘No,’ he says flatly and walks off. The others chuckle. Cookey nods with respect at the timing of the subtle joke.
‘Kyle,’ Reginald says, nodding in greeting.
‘Reginald,’ Kyle says, returning the greeting as he takes in the casual way Reginald looks round to make sure no one else can hear them.
‘I er,’ Reginald says politely, dropping his voice to a low muted tone.
Kyle inclines head sharply as he places the pan on the hob and sets the gas jets to flame. Not now. He twists the valve to increase the flow, filling the room with the hiss of the burners. He pauses, looking at Reginald. A second later, the downstairs toilet flushes. The toilet door opens. Sam comes out and turns briefly to smile at Reginald before making her way down the hallway to the front door. Kyle nods. Reginald pushes his glasses up his nose and begins to explain.
‘Boss? It’s Blowers, we’re test firing out the front…repeat…test firing weapons out the front…’
‘Yep, got it, mate,’ Howie replies into his radio.
‘Lilly here, there will be test firing of weapons,’ Lilly relays the message.
Heather fires the assault rifle. Surprised at the lack of recoil from the weapon. Single shots fired out to sea. Blowers watches her closely.
‘Good, very good. Don’t keep your feet together though…that’s better. Squeeze the trigger…good. How many shots have you fired?’
‘Seven.’
‘How many in the magazine?’
‘Thirty.’
‘How many do you have left?’
‘Twenty three.’
‘Good. When I say, sling the rifle like I showed you and draw the pistol. Okay?’
‘Yep.’
He waits, letting her fire off a few more shots before reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. ‘Weapon is jammed…’
She stops firing and goes to sling the rifle, ‘do I put the safety on?’
‘Always…I mean, like if they are right in front of you and that second of pause will get you killed then no…but remember it means you have a live weapon dangling down your back.’
She switches the safety, slings the rifle and draws the pistol to hold two handed. Her thumb finds the safety and flicks it over. She fires the first round, wincing at the power of the recoil.
‘Yeah it’s a bitch,’ Blowers says.
‘Hurts my ears,’ she says, shaking her head.
Clarence watches for a few minutes then goes back to fitting the GPMG. Cases of ammunition are stacked. Magazines are distributed. Bags are checked. Hand weapons are taken back. Jess is loaded. Peter and a few of his men stand talking to Pea and Sam. Joan bustles here and there giving orders and chiding anyone not working.
Fifty minutes after he left the house, Maddox steps off the boat onto the beach and makes his way through the people working to stack and sort goods ready for ferrying to the fort. Again they show the same distaste at the sight of him. He trudges on but keeps his head high and looks only ahead.
Fifty nine minutes after Maddox left the house Howie walks out the front door and stops to take a cigarette from the packet offered by Nick. He bends his head to light the smoke then steps back with a muttered thanks. Clarence walks over to join them. Charlie and Blinky come from the house. Blowers walks down from the road with Heather and Paco. Lilly walks out to stand and talk to Nick. Reginald watches her and the way the twelve men, Pea, Sam and Joan all watch her. The same way Howie’s team always know where he is. Reginald joins the group. Paula comes out the house, mid-way through a conversation with Roy. They both stop. Roy turns to lift his top. Paula frowns and looks at his back then says something. Roy pulls his top down. A toilet flushes. Dave and Mo Mo stand slightly apart from the main group. Watching. Scanning. Always watching. Always scanning. Meredith sits in the middle of group. Blissfully happy at the whole of the pack being in one place. Marcy walks from the house and up the path as Cookey notices Maddox walking towards them. Muttered words spoken. Everyone turns to watch Maddox approaching who inwardly braces in readiness for the insults. It stings more when they don’t come as it means Howie has said something that everyone is now abiding by. He stops a few feet away and looks at the faces without a flicker of emotion showing on his face.