Only the Few

by L. N. Denison

  “What I want to know is what drives men to do what you and Stevens did? Why would you hurt so many people?”

  Judd lifted his head as far as the scarf would allow, looking straight at Hyde, her eyes glistening in the moonlight. He tried to figure out the expression on the corporal’s face, but the diminished light distorted her features. He couldn’t read her at all.

  I wonder what she’d say If I told her I left her for her own safety? I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions if we’d taken her with us. If Hyde could only read the look in his eyes, she would realise that he was full of remorse for his actions towards her. He wasn’t sorry about the three men he’d killed as he and Stevens tried to rob Marcus and his people. Judd knew why Marcus hated him, why the man wanted to make his life a misery and it had started a long time ago. What he couldn’t work out was why Hyde had stuck up for him. Perhaps she’d understand if she knew.

  ~

  Hyde was jostled from her slumber by the sound of children wailing and moaning for their breakfast as it echoed through the church ruins.

  “Wake up, corporal, the kids need feeding,” Marcus said with a gentle voice.

  Slowly, Hyde opened her eyes and wiped away the sleep, focussing on Marcus’s smiling face. His wavy, shoulder length hair danced in the breeze, and his foot-long beard was neatly parted in the middle like a forked tongue. She was drawn to his piercing blue eyes.

  “Is there enough food left for the children?” he asked.

  Grabbing her bag, Hyde double checked, hoping nobody had helped themselves as she slept. Thankfully, the same number of rations remained.

  “Yes, sir, we have, and a little left over for the women too.” A gentle smile formed on her lips as she spoke.

  “Good. Divvy it up, and I’ll distribute it,” Marcus offered.

  Hyde had never seen this scruffy man being gentle and considerate in the short time she’d known him, and she wondered what might have inspired a change in his demeanour. Splitting the rations into the correct number of child size portions left very little for the women to fight over. She stared past Marcus, towards Judd, who was being poked, prodded and kicked by Jas. What the fuck is she doing?

  Marcus must have seen where Hyde was looking.

  “Jas, stop that! Move away from the prisoner,” he shouted.

  Jas appeared to enjoy pissing off her father as she kicked Judd twice more before moving away from him.

  “Get your arse over here!” Marcus demanded. “Eat your ration.” He handed Jas the meagre helping of corned beef hash. She grimaced as she took possession of it. After rolling it around in her hand for a bit, she ate the morsel whole, licking her fingers as she chewed.

  “Go back to the shelter and hand these out,” Marcus passed her the rest of the rations in neat little piles. “The bigger pieces are for the children; the rest are for the women to share among themselves.”

  Jas hunched her shoulders, kicking up the dirt with her trainers as she headed back toward the church. Marcus turned to look at Hyde, his gaze soft.

  Not knowing how to respond, Hyde started to repack the tarpaulins.

  “We need to move out after the children have been fed,” Marcus said.

  Hyde nodded in agreement as she raised herself to her feet and headed over to Judd with her half-filled canteen of water. Considering Judd’s pitiful eyes, she pulled the cloth from his mouth, which forced him to cough and take several deep breaths. Hyde poured some of the liquid into his mouth. He choked back half the water as he tried to swallow then started to cough uncontrollably.

  “Sorry.” She poured more water into his mouth, but slower. She waited until he had calmed himself, and his body had settled down again, then replaced the gag. Judd looked upon her with gratitude.

  CHAPTER 10

  After repacking the bergen, Hyde swung the pack back over her shoulders and grabbed her weapon. Everybody stood watching, waiting for her to lead them out of the ruins. Judd was being guided by two men, one either side, making sure he kept pace—whether he wanted to or not. Marcus brought up the rear with his daughter, watching everybody as they shuffled impatiently. Taking a steadying breath, Hyde drew the compass out, watched the needle fluctuate, then started toward the open road with a sense of purpose.

  It took the group around an hour and thirty minutes to get to their next destination of Low Ellington. The weather had been kind to them this time, a light breeze countering the sun’s blistering rays; the temperature, a happy medium.

  ~

  There was only rubble remaining of the once thriving community known as Low Ellington. Without any prior knowledge of the area, Hyde couldn’t compare it to anything she might’ve seen before. She felt a tap on her shoulder and swung around. A fair-skinned woman who looked to be around Hyde’s age was facing her. Hyde offered her a kind smile and waited for her to speak.

  “I know a place not far from here. It was my home for twenty years, but I’m not sure what’s left.” There was a hint of sadness in her voice.

  “Do you know much of this area?” Hyde asked, placing her hand on the young woman’s arm.

  “I can guide you as far as Leeds, but I don’t know any farther than that,” she said, almost looking disappointed with herself as she lowered her eyes to the ground.

  “Leeds is good, we can figure out the rest when the time comes.” Hyde smiled. “What’s your name?”

  The woman cleared her throat nervously. “My name is Agnes West, Aggie to my friends.”

  “Nice to meet you, Aggie. What’s the place called? How long will it take to get there?”

  “It’s a little village called Fearby, I was born there. It should only take forty minutes from here. I’ll guide you there.” Aggie offered.

  Hyde nodded, and with a smile creeping over her face, she gestured for Aggie to lead the way.

  A little time had passed, and they’d arrived in Fearby. Unlike the last stop, there were no signs that anything or anyone had lived there since the bombs. There was considerably more devastation than which had been afflicted on the church. Hyde walked over to Marcus, rifle tight to her chest. She drew as close as she could to him, and whispered in his ear.

  “I think we need to start searching for food. It is approaching midday, and children will need to eat shortly.”

  Marcus agreed.

  ~

  The afternoon sun beat down on the ragtag group as they walked on in hope of finding somewhere to stop and eat. The breeze, which had taken the edge off the heat, had all but disappeared. Hyde could feel sweat dripping down her back, pasting her t-shirt to her saturated skin, the heavy smock also becoming a burden. She raised a fist, signalling a brief stop. The procession that followed her halted. Dumping gear felt so good. It allowed her to shed some of her damp clothing. Unzipping the smock, she peeled it from her arms. Her skin was raw from the constant rubbing of the sweat-soaked material, but there would be little relief from the heat, as she could already feel her skin burning under the sun’s blistering rays. She tied the damp smock around one of the bergen’s straps, then remounted it on her shoulders and wiped the sweat from her saturated brow before retrieving the rifle from the dry ground. The survivors were faced with nothing but ruins and dust as they trudged through the small village.

  ~

  Hyde looked over her shoulder. The entire group, especially the children, were struggling to keep up under the gaze of the sun’s torturous beams. Aggie turned to Hyde and grabbed her arm, pointing forward with her other hand.

  “If we head farther down this road, we should reach an old farmhouse.” As she pulled Hyde down a single-track dirt road, she added. “A doomsdayer owned the house. He constructed a bomb shelter under the foundations. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows about it. I was certainly the only one who took any real interest in him. I found him fascinating. He showed me around after he built it. It has everything, I’ve seen for myself. Showers, beds, a kitchen, and hopefully, food and water. I think he had an old CB radio as w
ell, not sure it works though. He was known as ‘old man Turner’ by the rest of the villagers, but I knew him as Uncle Frank.”

  “Was he really your uncle?”

  “Nah, he was a friend of my mother’s. Nobody else really cared or took an interest in him. They pretty much shunned him for his eccentricities. It’s sad really. He was a lovely man.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The farmhouse itself had been reduced to rubble and Aggie was clearly finding it hard to locate the door for the bomb shelter.

  “Any luck?” Hyde pressed as she stared up at the sky. “We need to get the kids inside, and quick. Time’s getting on and it looks like there’s another storm brewing.”

  Aggie tapped her temple with her index finger. “The last time I was here was several years before the bombs hit. I think it’s around the back of where the main house was. I was young when Frank showed me the shelter, and I didn’t really pay much attention. I never thought I’d be seeing it in these circumstances, there aren’t any reference points left.”

  Hyde gave Aggie a sympathetic smile and followed her as she picked her way through the rubble.

  Marcus called out to her a few minutes later. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do with Judd. There must be somewhere we can secure him for the night. I don’t want him anywhere near the rest of us,” he turned toward Aggie and cast her an expectant look. “Is there somewhere like that down there?”

  Aggie shrugged. “I can vaguely remember a locked door, but that’s it. Not sure what was behind it though.”

  “I’m sure we can put him somewhere out of sight until we move out again,” Hyde reassured Marcus.

  “I can guard him. I have the means to protect myself.” She tapped the body of her rifle for emphasis.

  Marcus smiled and squeezed her shoulder.

  ~

  Everything was covered in stinging nettles and ivy.

  “Come on everyone, follow my lead. The doors are metal and I know they’re around here somewhere,” Aggie said, tapping her foot over the area she was standing in. There was nothing. The rest of the group spread out and started doing the same thing. Even some of the children were helping. They were jumping around with unwavering zeal, as if the whole thing were nothing more than a big game.

  A boy called out. “Mum, mum, I’ve found it!”

  The boy’s mother ran over to him, followed closely by Hyde and Aggie. All of them worked at brushing away the weeds. A pair of metal doors were revealed, and Hyde started pulling on them. The hinges creaked as the doors opened a crack, stopping after a few hard pulls. It felt like they hadn’t been opened in a while, and the three women called out for some more muscle.

  ~

  Hyde took charge of Judd, as Marcus and a couple more men went to help prise the blast doors open. An older man in the group, sporting a hole-riddled sweater, a pair of loose fitting slacks and a five o’clock shadow shoved the boy’s mother and Agnes out of the way to gain access to the workspace.

  Aggie stumbled backwards, almost falling into the pile of shed nettles. “What the hell, John?” the young woman pursed her lips and frowned at the older man, as she windmilled her arms to save herself.

  “You want these doors open, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I would’ve preferred that you said ‘excuse me,’ instead of pushing us out of the way.”

  Marcus got between John and Aggie before fists started flying. “Apologise to the lady.” He glared at the old man, who in turn, glared at Aggie. She rolled her eyes at John’s feeble attempt at machismo.

  “Sorry Aggie, shoving you so hard wasn’t my intention,” John paused for a second, “I merely wanted to get you outta my way.”

  She said nothing, shaking her head in disapproval.

  “Dad,” John’s son, Matt said, as he looked at his father, frowning.

  “What? I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

  Aggie walked away, back stiff. The boy and his mother followed her, shooting John disgusted looks. Hyde saw Aggie’s smile of satisfaction as the men fought against the heavy bomb shelter door. By the look of it, they were having as little luck as the women.

  “Don’t strain yourselves too much, will you?” Aggie shouted, her voice overflowing with sarcasm at their failure.

  ~

  It’d taken a good few attempts to get the heavy metal doors open, but John, Marcus and John’s son, Matt had done it. The smell that greeted them as they finally swung the doors open was a musty, deathly stench. No one made a move to enter. Marcus looked at the other two men incredulously and felt his way down the stairs, using only the light from the fading sun to guide him.

  “I’ll try and find the generator. Places like this usually have one. The inhabitants wouldn’t survive a week otherwise.” Marcus shouted up to the others who were still too scared to come down.

  He didn’t have to feel very far. ‘Uncle Frank’ had been very astute. The generator was a little to the right of the last step. And on that line of thinking, Marcus ran his fingers along the side facing the stairwell to find the cord. People had probably called Frank a doomsday nut but his foresight might well be the saving of Marcus’s little group of survivors. He had made the job of starting the oil-filled contraption easy. Marcus primed the pump to get it going. With a thunderous roar, and a plume of smoke, the genny kicked into action, and the lights flickered to life. Having a good look around, the bomb shelter seemed to have everything. A sleeping area with several bunks precisely placed, somewhere to dine, an ample kitchen, plenty of storage space, bathroom facilities... everything. But it would only be a stop gap. London, with its medical facilities, was the better place to be in the long term.

  A few minutes passed before he resurfaced, waving everybody over. “You can come down. I’ve got the generator up and running.” Looking over, he saw Hyde struggling with Judd. She was trying to pull him along by his collar, but Judd stumbled, clearly being less than cooperative. Marcus jogged over to them. Hyde was as tough as nails, but Judd still outweighed her by quite a bit.

  “You go ahead, I’ve got him from here,” Marcus gripped Judd’s arm and pulled him along. For some unknown reason, Judd fought every step of the way. Marcus didn’t have time for the bastard’s games. He was hot, tired and sleep deprived. Removing the silk scarf from his neck, Marcus blindfolded his prisoner.

  ~

  The locked door Aggie had mentioned was nothing more than a large storage cupboard, with one flickering light bulb that looked like it was on its way out. Bottles of mineral water were stacked against the back wall. With a little rearranging, it would also make a perfect holding cell. It was in the ideal location, situated at the back of the shelter, out of the way.

  “We need to get some of that water out to make room for a mattress. You can’t put him directly on this stone floor,” Hyde insisted as she began to remove the twelve packs from the room.

  Marcus frowned at her leniency as he pulled Judd closer.

  “I can’t allow him to be ill-treated, sir,” she explained, as she thought about what she did to Judd in the cave. “No more harm is to come to him.... please. We’re better than him.”

  “Fair enough, but don’t expect me to mollycoddle him... and he eats when I say he eats, is that clear?” Marcus’s jaw clenched.

  Hyde backed away, not wanting to be drawn into another debate on how the prisoner should be treated. She bent down to pick up the first lot of water.

  Throwing an arm around Judd’s neck, Marcus pulled him close.

  “It’s your lucky day. Be grateful that Corporal Hyde is, for some unknown reason, concerned about your welfare. If I had my way, you’d be paying for your crimes in blood.”

  Judd trembled in his grip. Watching as she worked, Hyde understood his fear. He had been threatened with death.

  With Marcus watching her as he held the prisoner, Hyde finished up in the store room, having moved all but two of the twelve-packs into the kitchen. Brushing past him as she went, she located a mattress to make th
e prisoner a little more comfortable. Without being able to see his eyes it was difficult to tell how Judd was feeling, but by his body language, he was deflated and probably wishing he hadn’t been so greedy.

  A few moments later, she brought a mattress that couldn’t have been more than two inches thick into the makeshift cell. Like the rest of the disused shelter, it smelled musty and damp but it was liveable. She wondered what had become of poor Frank who had put this all together and had never been able to use it.

  Walking into the storage area, she placed the flimsy bedding on the ground. “Let me just get a chair, and then we’ll be set,” she said upon exiting.

  “A chair?” Marcus asked, his mouth almost hanging open in shock.

  “Well, yeah! I’m not going to sit on the floor, am I?”

  Marcus shook his head in disbelief. “Let’s get you settled in, shall we?” He pulled Judd into the small, cold room and forced him to kneel on the mattress. “Lay on your stomach.”

  Judd complied without resistance, laying his head to the side. Marcus took the sheet Hyde had found and tied the prisoner’s ankles together. “The blindfold and gag will stay on until we reach London,” he said, a sense of calm inflected in his deep voice. “The next time you see daylight, it’ll be in London just before you get a bullet between the eyes.”

  Marcus indicated to the doorway with his head. “Get what you need, I’ll watch him.”

  With a sigh at the posturing of the male gender, Hyde went to hunt out what she needed through the now bustling bomb shelter. Dragging a chair behind her in one hand, and holding a pack of freeze-dried fruit in the other, she entered the temporary prison cell. She shooed Marcus out, hiding the small package of food under her armpit before he noticed. She shut the door behind him and placed the chair in front of Judd’s head. Then, with her rifle at her side, she sat and stared at his motionless body. How did it feel to be Malcolm Judd right now?

  After only a handful of minutes, Hyde stood again, keeping her eyes on Judd as he turned onto his side, trying to get comfortable on the thin mattress.