by Natasha West
I licked my lips nervously. The stranger stepped toward Emma and put his hand out, ‘I’m Mason Randall. I live just through there’ he said, pointing at a large hedge, ten feet high, just off the road. ‘We keep the alarm on in case of looters.’
‘We?’ Emma asked, shaking his hand reticently.
‘Yeah, my family.’
‘And you live in that bush?’ I asked.
He laughed. ‘Ha, no, we… There’s something beyond the bush, a building. Used to be a hotel. But now we live there.’
I glanced back at Jude and Emma, to see their reactions to this guy. They looked like they were taking him at face value. I wasn’t so sure. But maybe that was Rachel’s influence. To listen to her, you’d think everyone in the world would murder you at the drop of a hat. I’d always sworn I wouldn’t get so paranoid, that I wouldn’t always think the worst. Still, I wasn’t a dummy. A guy had appeared from a bush. I needed a few more credentials than that before I trusted him.
‘Why don’t you come in for a bit?’ Mason offered. ‘We’ve got food. And lots of beds, obviously. You could get fed, watered, rested.’
I thought Emma would tell him no, that we were just passing. But she gave me this little look and I thought, Don’t you dare. But she didn’t heed my eyes and said, ‘Beds?’
I couldn’t believe it. The woman who thought our neighbour would murder our chickens and eat them given half the chance was willing to put herself in a stranger’s hands, just so she wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground tonight.
‘Err, Emma…’ I began, trying not to let Mason know I wasn’t too sure about him.
But Mason had turned his attention to Jude. ‘And what’s your name, young man?’ Jude answered him and Mason looked him up and down. ‘What are you, about eighteen? My daughter’s not much older than you.’
I saw a look in Jude’s eyes at that piece of information. I knew we were going in.
Mason led us through the bushes to reveal the hotel. It was a budget place, a chain I remembered from the old days, it’s purple frontage fallen into disrepair. But the front entrance, where there should have been a couple of electronic sliding doors to encourage the entry of weary motorway travellers, had been adapted. It had a large wooden structure on the front, like a door, but attached to a series of ropes and pulleys, rather than a hinge.
‘Rose! Bring up the drawbridge’ Mason yelled up to a window. A young woman popped her head out. She was around her early-twenties, pretty, with short blonde hair and cheeks that lived up to her name. I assumed she must be the daughter Mason had spoken of. I glanced over to see Jude’s reaction and his eyes were like saucers. He didn’t get to meet many girls of his own age.
‘We got visitors?’ she asked, having a good look at us. Her eyes came to rest on Jude. Jude looked away.
‘Yep, think I scared the bejesus out of them with our safety system’ he said with a grin to us. I didn’t grin back. Jude did, of course. Emma looked neutral. ‘But they’re coming in for the night, so let us in, would you?’
The door began to screech and wobble and slowly, the wooden structure lifted on its system of ropes to reveal a gaping hole where the old entrance had been.
‘Come on in’ Mason said, striding ahead. Jude was hot on his heels. Emma went second. I watched them go in without moving. But Emma called, ‘Come on, slowcoach!’ and I found my feet taking me forward, through the entrance. The door screeched again and dropped behind me, closing us in.
We were in an old lobby, its creams and beiges long faded to a general grey, with a reception desk at one end and seats bolted to the floors around small tables. In the seats sat two people, a middle-aged lady, a little on the heavy side, and a tiny old man, thin, with the eyes of a hawk. They were playing cards. ‘That’s a royal flush. I win,’ said the lady. The man raised an eyebrow, ‘You think I didn’t see you cheating, Bess?’ She opened her mouth to protest and then spotted us coming in with Mason. ‘Gosh. New people’ she cried and stood, coming over. ‘Mason, who have we here?’
Mason looked at us and said, ‘You know what, I didn’t even get their names!’
‘I’m Alice. This is Emma and Jude’ I supplied. I was in now. No need to be rude.
‘I’m Bess Randall and that’s my father-in-law, Adam’ Bess told us. I looked to Adam, who’d yet to move. I gave him a small wave. He gave the slightest nod and then turned back to his cards, picking them up and shuffling them with the skills of a croupier. I watched in astonishment for a second, before Mason said, ‘Come on, let’s go to the dining room, get you fed.’
We followed him, walking past a busted elevator with the doors wide open. Inside the elevator sat a small desk and behind the desk sat a tiny, juiceless looking man with a bald, bony head. He was using the elevator like some kind of office. ‘I’m gonna need names?’ he said to us, casually.
Mason put his hands on his trouser pockets and looked at the man, saying to us, ‘This is Dean, my brother. He’s trying not to be a prick but as usual, he’s come up short.’
Dean licked his dusty lips. ‘Customer relations aren’t my problem. I keep the ledgers. That way, I know how much to get from the traders, how many sheets need cleaning. You wanna drag every Tom, Dick and Harry in here, that’s how it works.’ Mason sighed but he gave Dean our names. Dean scribbled furiously, looking us up and down as he wrote.
It was fair to say that I didn’t like Dean from the off. He reminded me of when bureaucracies existed. It was his officiousness. He had a small job and he was making it into a big one, lording his tiny responsibility over us. I hoped I wouldn’t need to have too many dealings with him.
And I had no intention whatsoever of staying the night. I’d let Emma and Jude eat, but the first chance I got I would pull them aside for a word. This place was its own little world with its own rules and I wasn’t comfortable, despite Mason’s efforts to lay on the charm.
‘They need bands’ Dean said after he finished his note-taking. He took out a box of coloured rubber bands. He took out two blue ones, handing them to me and Emma.
‘What’s this for?’ I asked.
‘Everyone gets one when they come in’ Mason told us. He put a red band on Jude, saying, ‘You ok with the band?’
Jude looked a bit confused, but he nodded.
‘It’s just a little thing to make it clear you’re in for the night’ Mason told him.
‘Make it clear to who?’ I asked. But Mason was pushing open the door to the dining room and either didn’t hear me or pretended not to.
In the dining room, tables were set out, filled with people midway through their lunch. Around ten people, all older than me and Emma, the rest of the Randall family apparently. They looked at us with suspicion but never spoke a word, just went back to their meals.
Mason bid us to sit and we did. He went over to a hatch in the wall and called through. ‘Stu? Got some guests. We got any of that good booze left?’
Stu, a natty looking fellow with a bowtie and a bad comb-over, stuck his head through and examined us. He seemed to take particular interest in Jude. ‘Brought some new friends in, did ya? Don’t you worry, we got a brand-new crate a few days back.’ Stu disappeared back through the hatch and after a moment, a tray appeared on the shelf, collected by Mason.
When I saw the tray, I was amazed. I hadn’t seen that much cheese in a long time. It had cheddar, stilton, even a slice of brie. The guy down the road from me with the cow gave us a lump now and again, but it was basic. This was a selection, like the cheese boards from the old days.
There was also a bottle of wine, apparently the stuff that had come out of the new crate that Stu mentioned. There was no label but when I took a tentative sip, I knew it was good shit. It had been some time since I’d had a real drink and it took all my self-discipline not to neck it. ‘Where do you get all this stuff?’ I asked.
‘We get deliveries from all over’ Mason told me, smugly. ‘Cheese, wine, meat, you name it. People come to us to sell because they know we ha
ve the money.’
I was about to ask where this money came from, but Emma suddenly stamped lightly on my foot under the table. I swallowed a shout and looked at her but she glared back. The implication was clear. Don’t offend our host.
The other diners eyed us up as we ate and I tried to keep my head down, avoiding eye contact. No one seemed as friendly as Mason and I got the distinct impression I was being assessed. As I ate, I noticed something. Everyone there was older than me and Emma. No one was under fifty. Except for one person who suddenly appeared, poking her head in with a smile. Rose.
She strode over and sat down. Jude, who’d been slouching a moment ago, suddenly sat up straight. ‘Hello’ Rose said to the table and we muttered our greetings. All except for Jude, who couldn’t seem to speak.
The poor kid, I knew exactly what his problem was. When it came to girls, he was out of his element.
I’d taken over Jude’s education a few years ago. School didn’t matter these days, there were no universities to go to, no employers to impress, but I’d been an English teacher before, so Olly asked if I’d teach him a few hours a week and I was glad to do it. Ensuring Jude’s reading and writing was up to scratch and that he knew some maths, science, history, it still seemed important, despite the times. I didn’t know how much use the old knowledge was in the new world, but I couldn’t let him grow up ignorant.
But there’d been one subject I wasn’t sure if I should broach with him. Sex education. Every kid needed it, I knew that, but the thing was, I was his aunt as well as his teacher. I didn’t want to accidently traumatise him by trying to explain sex to him... Badly. Because what the hell did I know about the sexual practises of men? It just wasn’t my area.
So I’d asked Olly about it and he said not to worry, that he’d take care of that side. I don’t know precisely what Olly taught him, I assume it was the general birds and bees. But I doubted Jude had ever had a chance to take it any further than the theory. He’d seen girls before, there were a few around our area but whenever he was around one, he just froze up.
And now here was a pretty girl of his generation - who he wasn’t related to - sat right across from him. And the poor soul didn’t know what to do. Selfishly, I was glad. I wanted to leave and I didn’t want Jude to get distracted from what we’d set out to do, which had nothing to do with meeting girls.
‘Jude?’ Rose was asking him, ‘I don’t think I know of a Jude around here. Where you from?’
‘Not close’ Jude mumbled.
Rose waited a moment, thinking there might be more. But it never came. ‘So where you going?’
Jude looked at his hands and said, ‘North.’
Even if Jude could have said more, I didn’t really want to spill our lives to these strangers. The situation was private. Not to mention pressing. ‘Thanks for the food’ I said, trying to wrap things up. ‘But I think we’d better be going.’
Rose and Mason looked shocked. As did Emma and Jude. ‘We just got here’ Emma muttered to me.
‘Yes, but we need to… Get where we’re going. Isn’t that the whole reason we got on the M1 to start with? To get there quicker?’ I said, trying to sound calm, not irritated, not concerned, not weirded out by the vibe of this place. It was the mismatch between Rose and Mason’s friendliness and everyone else’s cold distance. It was off.
‘Yes, but even if we take the weight off our feet for a bit here, we’ll still get there quicker than we ever would have under Rachel’s guidance’.
I didn’t like the mockery of Rachel. But there were bigger fish to fry here. ‘What’s the point in wasting time? Surely we wanna get there as fast as we can?’
Mason interjected. ‘Hey, it’s up to you guys when you go, but maybe your journey would go better on a good night’s sleep? You can have a room each? Up to you’ he finished affably, putting another forkful of food in his mouth. It was the kind of offer that’s hard to refute, especially when you know that nobody has your back.
Fifteen
Rachel
I was pretty sure I’d lost them.
I’d walked south for half an hour but since they’d continued north at the same time, that made it more like an hour’s gain they had. And that’s if we’d walked at the same rate. If Emma had kept up that angry march and everyone else had been forced to match it, I might have been even further behind. So I spent a morning’s walk thinking two things. One: I was taking a silly risk by getting onto the M1. Two: It was for nothing.
I was full of doubts. Yet I didn’t stop.
I was weary and watchful the entire time I walked that road, my brain screaming at me to get the hell off, to leave them be, to go back to the farm and collect my payment. But on I went, step by step, feeling silly and scared.
And then the noise came. It was a car alarm, and it was coming from the direction I was headed. I knew it was a bad sign, that I should get out of sight, walk off this damned road. But a thought caught my brain and I couldn’t shake it. That it was something to do with Alice and her family, that it was an indication of trouble down the road and that it was almost certainly their trouble.
So I fought every instinct I’d spent most of my adulthood cultivating and I walked toward the noise. And the walk became a jog that turned into a sprint. I ran for maybe half a mile before I got stitch. But I ran through it, worried to death about those silly Quinn’s.
As I got closer to the sound, I realised that I didn’t have to walk right down the road in the open, I could sneak closer behind the barriers that lined the road, creeping low along the dirt path, hidden behind the concrete pillars. So that’s what I did, shuffling down that road for around five hundred metres, creeping closer to the noise.
And then it stopped. My ears were glad of the relief, my mind worried about why it had stopped.
I kept going, creeping down low. Every now and then, I’d peek over the barrier to see if there was something to see. Eventually, there was.
I couldn’t quite make them out at first, they were some ways down the road, a cluster of people. What threw me initially was that there was four of them. It took a moment to realise, just as they walked through a large thicket, that it was indeed Alice, Jude and Emma. But that they had an escort taking them somewhere. A large guy.
I couldn’t figure out quite what the situation was as they vanished into the bushes. From the body language, though they were going with him willingly. But that was what worried me. They’d met some guy, probably a stranger to them and they were following him somewhere. Why would they do that?
I went through the possible scenarios. The most hopeful one was that he was just some trader they’d bumped into on the road, looking to make an exchange of this or that. It happened now and again. But when I met someone who needed food, water, clothing, shoes, whatever, I never went anywhere with them. That was just silly. You wanna show me something? Just show it to me. You never follow them to a second location. I’d heard too many stories of people getting caught out like that. Some poor innocent meets a man who says, ‘Oh, my stuff’s just under that bridge’ and in they go to be met by a group of armed guys. Guys who will take your shit, maybe kill you, maybe other things. So if the guy was just a trader, he had no business leading them anywhere.
The next thing I thought was that maybe they did know him after all. But that hope popped pretty quickly. Alice had told me that they’d never come this far, that they stuck close to home. They couldn’t know anyone out here.
In the end, I realised I couldn’t know what they were doing without following. I wanted to do it discretely. If the shit really was hitting the fan, it wouldn’t help them to have me running in unprepared. I needed to observe, think, plan.
So I moved closer to where they’d disappeared. As I got near, I noticed a little contraption sitting on top of the barrier, no doubt the alarm that had been blaring a moment ago, now dead. The Quinn’s must have set it off by getting too close, it had to be a movement sensor ramped up to its most sensitive setting. Which
meant I’d have to go the long way around.
I backed up from the alarm by about twenty metres and then hopped onto the road, dashing right to the other side as quick as my legs could take me, jumping over the next barrier, scooting back down to stay out of the sight of any eyes that might be watching. Once I was over the other side, I continued on, passing by the invisible line of the alarm. It didn’t go off.
As I got further down, I spotted something back across the road, a place where the bushes had recently been disturbed, footprints in the dirt. That had to be where they’d gone in. I jumped back over the barrier and legged it to the spot, all the while worried that I was being seen by god knows who. I was in a paranoid state of mind, I knew that. But paranoia could be useful on occasion. If there was a possibility that this was one of those times… If I was acting crazy then so be it. Better crazy than dead.
I pushed through the bushes, finding myself in a clearing. In front of me was a building, a busted old hotel that had been modified in the front. A wooden door had been knocked up to protect the entrance and it was fixed to a bunch of ropes that led into a few open windows. I fell back to the bushes while I took a better look. I had no doubt that the stranger had led them behind that very formidable door. It was obviously only meant to be opened from the inside. I wouldn’t be able to get through that thing on my own and certainly not quietly.
I needed to see if there was another way in.
Sixteen
Alice
A few hours had gone by and we were still in the hotel. I couldn’t seem to get a moment alone with Emma and Jude to convince them that the place was off. And then I’d let myself get pulled off track completely.
After we’d eaten, Rose asked Jude if he wanted to help her in the garden. He agreed quickly. Then Mason offered Emma and I bedrooms to rest up in if we wanted. I said no, Emma said yes, looking happy at the prospect of getting her feet up.