* * *
The storm died down a bit. The man now sat beside them, rummaging through an ice box. He tossed a couple of pieces of smoked haddock at each of them, and then dug into one of his own. Alice and Adrian could hardly believe their luck. Despite sea sickness, they suddenly realised how hungry they were. They bit eagerly into the fish’s chewy meat, licking their fingers and swallowing almost without chewing.
“Good, yeah?” the man said, with a hint of a smile. Neither of them felt the need to answer him.
Adrian noticed that the man’s eyes lingered on Alice in a way that he found alarming. He wasn’t staring, rather it was like he was trying not to stare. Adrian wondered whether an adult man could ever find a girl as young as her attractive. It made him sick to think so. But there it was – the man was glancing down at his food, then towards the sea, and then, invariably, he’d sneak a sideways look at her. It was a brief look, but one that allowed enough time for his eyes to creep upwards, from her shoes all the way to her face.
Adrian wiped his hands on his trousers. “Ally,” he said to her, “could you get the towel from your backpack, please?” She nodded and stood up carefully, as to not lose her balance, then knelt down by her backpack. Adrian watched as the man’s eyes stayed on her. It was hard to interpret his expression. His eyebrows were close together, but his eyes had a hint of sadness to them. Not a sadness that moved Adrian in any way though.
While she had her back to him, Adrian silently waved to the man to draw his attention. When he turned, and realised Adrian had noticed his glances, he frowned and swallowed, and looked away. Adrian waved again. This time, as the man looked at him, he opened his jacket slightly, to reveal the butcher’s knife concealed inside it.
At first, the man seemed to chuckle, sarcastically. But then, as Adrian held his gaze, he dropped the smile. Looking Adrian in the eye, he nodded seriously, I understand. The boy suddenly felt pure disgust for this pathetic man.
Adrian fixed his jacket, hiding the butcher’s knife from view again.
“Here you go,” said Alice, turning around and handing the towel to him.
“Thank you.”
“Have you seen those men before, sir? The ones in black?” Alice asked the man as she sat down again.
“Twice before,” he answered without looking at her. “First time was about a month ago. There were two or three of them. They kept to themselves, but I noticed they weren’t afraid. Everyone’s afraid, these days. They weren’t.”
“What about the second time?” asked Adrian.
“The second time-” began the man, as he stood and took his place at the rudder again. “The second time there were more, fifteen or so. All with those flipping uniforms. They were hanging a priest. They’d tied a thick rope around his neck, and had him swinging from a lamppost. They sliced his belly open, before he was dead.” The man turned and spat in the sea. “So yes, I saw them just the twice. An’ I don’t want to bump into them again.”
Adrian shivered. He looked overboard towards the waters, now a little calmer. Somewhere below them – it was hard to tell how deep – he noticed a large, faint white shadow, dancing in the ripples of the murky Channel waves.
He leaned forwards, squinting, and realised he was looking at the carcass of a ship that had sunk to the seabed. Adrian could trace its vast size in the shimmering little projection that now scraped the surface of the water below him. It made him feel dizzy. For some reason, the image of that grand ship, forgotten and powerless in its silent, sandy tomb made him feel sorry. Sorry for the people who perhaps had been aboard that ship. Sorry for those who had waited for them, standing in harbours or by their doors hoping to welcome them back. Sorry for the ship itself, incapable of overcoming its destiny despite the metal might of its build.
His eyelids grew heavy. He started slipping into a strange sort of sad slumber, the boat rocking him gently. But, just as his mind began to drift, as it does before sleep sets in, he heard Alice’s voice call out.
“Land!” she cried.
Chapter 12
Bately
Bang!
A perfect shot. The shredded remains of the target went flying through the air. It happened so fast, Paul could hardly believe it.
“Good job, Catherine,” said Bill, nodding with approval.
“Phew,” said Catherine, lowering the rifle and handing it to Lance Corporal Billings who stood beside her. “I suppose I’m not that bad, after all.” She looked at the remains of the cabbage, thirty feet away, and couldn’t help smiling.
“You did great,” said Bill.
Moore and Paul shared an embarrassed look. They hadn’t fared quite as well.
Bill had decided they each needed some basic firearm training before setting off on the expedition to Ashford. Given the lack of ammo, most of this training had consisted of theory, but they each got three actual shots to practice their aim. “It’s not much,” Bill had said, “but it’s something.”
At first, Paul was reluctant. Firing bullets was something he didn’t exactly associate with spreading the Word. “We’ll have two of your men escort us, won’t we?” he had asked Bill, hoping his mild irritation wouldn’t translate into his tone. “What’s the point in us all learning how to use a firearm?”
It was Catherine who had replied. “Because there’s no knowing who might need to shoot, Paul.” The implication being, thought Paul, that some of them might die or be severely injured during their trip. Unlikely, but far from impossible. They all needed to be able to fend for themselves.
Paul had never shot a weapon before. In fact, he’d never even touched one. He had felt terrified when Bill had handed the rifle over to him. He knew that elsewhere in the world, rifles and guns had been commonplace before the impact, even among civilians. But to someone like him, who had no experience with them whatsoever, simply touching this metal machine, designed exclusively to kill or maim human beings, was enough to send shivers down his spine.
“Here, hold it like this,” Lance Corporal Billings had said, guiding his hands along the rifle’s body, then gently twisting his shoulders, setting his torso in the correct position. “Okay. There you go.” Paul had felt the eyes of the others upon him as he tried to align the sight on the tip of the barrel with the little aperture half way down it. But it wasn’t easy. He had a whole host of minuscule, involuntary body movements he’d never noticed before that seemed entirely dedicated to preventing him from aiming correctly. Then, when he finally thought he’d got it, he held his breath and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
“Err…” Bill began, somewhere behind him, “Father, do check the safety, before you–”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Paul had said, trying to release the safety. He felt oddly embarrassed and rather nervous. Realising his tone had been a little harsher than he’d intended, he added, “Thank you, Bill. Sorry about this.”
“Don’t worry. Relax. Try again.”
Paul loosened his neck a little, then did his best to get into a decent firing stance. And shot.
Bang!
The noise hadn’t been quite as loud as he’d expected, but the recoil was definitely harder. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder as the butt of the rifle sprang backwards. He obviously hadn’t been holding the weapon correctly.
He peered towards the vegetable with a curiosity that took him by surprise. For an instant, he really hoped he’d hit the cabbage.
It was a miss. Not a close one.
The muffled chuckles of two of the younger Guard members told him just how bad his shot had been. The two shots that followed were only slightly better.
At the end of it all, Paul stood, head slightly bowed. As he handed the weapon back to Billings, he smiled shyly. “Not quite my forte, apparently.” The others laughed. They were warm laughs, and Paul realised the firearm had unsettled him more than perhaps it should have. But was it just the embarrassment of his ineptitude? Or is it because Cathy saw you as inept, he ask
ed himself. Paul rapidly dismissed the question. It wasn’t something he was eager to consider at the moment.
Moore had had two close misses and one shot on target. When he stood, he too had that same humiliated look Paul had worn, and mumbled something about his eyesight.
Catherine turned out to be an excellent shot, and both men couldn’t help but feel slightly emasculated. “Well boys,” she said with a smile, “looks like you’ll just have to stick close to me.” They all had laughed.
The expedition was to include a party of five: two Guard members selected by Bill; Catherine to evaluate the usefulness of any medicine they might find; Moore, who would guide them to the warehouse; and Paul, simply because he had insisted on tagging along. He felt the urge to prove, not only to himself, that he could contribute to more practical tasks. Sitting in on the Council meetings and celebrating Mass were things he was proud of, but he needed something more.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to prove his worth by shooting.
* * *
“You’ll need to travel in the LMM-ready Land Rover Wolf. We can’t afford to send you off in the petrol vehicles,” said Bill as he ran his finger along the map of southeastern England spread out on his desk. They were gathered inside his office in St. George’s Elementary, a single, large room that also functioned as the Guard’s HQ.
“The Wolf is at the Southern Outpost. Jack and Timothy are stationed there now,” Bill tapped a spot on the map along the coast, roughly half way between Deal and Dover. “Should take you about 15 minutes to get there.”
The Outpost was nothing more than a small hut beside the sea that the Guard used to monitor the arrival of refugees from the continent. It was constantly garrisoned by a couple of Bill’s men.
“We’ll drive a regular vehicle, meet them there, and swap means of transport, correct?” asked Catherine.
“Exactly,” said Bill, dipping his chin. “Remember, the Wolf is slow. Max speed will be about forty miles per-hour, and you’re not going to travel along the motorway, so you’ll likely average less than that.”
“If we take side roads and travel through the countryside, it’ll be what, about thirty or thirty-five miles give or take,” said Edward.
“Yes. Worst case scenario, it should take you a couple of hours to get to Ashford,” said Bill.
Paul was observing the scaled-down rendition of Ashford on the map. It seemed so unthreatening, just another medium-sized town among the green pastures of Kent. But he knew this map described a world that was long gone now. They wouldn’t be travelling through the orderly country depicted by that chart with its trusting assumption that all was good in the world.
Bill raised his eyes towards them. “Do not hang about in Ashford. It’s not safe there. You find the warehouse, grab the meds, and leave.”
* * *
“Sure you don’t want me to come along, Dad?”
Mathew, Edward, and Paul were halfway up the steps to the church. They’d arranged for the boy to stay with Father Claudio while they were away.
“No son, it’s fine. We’re only going to collect a few vegetables in a town nearby. Boring, really.” The lie nagged at Edward’s conscience a bit, but they’d agreed not to tell Mathew the truth. The boy would have insisted on joining and he didn’t want that.
Mathew nodded, not quite convinced. He studied his father’s expression for an instant before seemingly deciding all was okay.
They stopped at the church’s entrance. Edward had intended to say goodbye as casually as possible; as he normally would. Now that the time had come though, he was hesitating. Although their plan was quite straightforward, there was a chance – slim as it may be – that he might not return. Images of the swarm of afflicted inside the warehouse with their vulgar, barbaric violence broke into his imagination before he could whisk them away.
“We’ll be back in the evening,” he said, doing his best to ignore the sudden void he felt inside his chest. He noticed Paul’s sympathetic eyes upon him. He felt this mild-mannered priest knew exactly what he was going through. Despite that, he couldn’t help wishing he were alone with his son.
“‘Kay, Dad,” Mathew leaned forwards and gave his father a quick hug. “See you later.”
Paul leaned his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come, I’ll introduce you to Father Claudio.”
Just as they stepped inside the church, Edward called out, “Be good, boy.”
“I will, Dad,” said Mathew with a smile.
Edward turned. As he walked away, fighting the urge to look back, he breathed in deeply, then exhaled as slowly and steadily as he could.
“He’s a little odd, at times, Father Claudio,” whispered Paul as he and Mathew crossed the church’s humble nave. “But I think you’ll get along.”
Paul knocked on Claudio’s door. “Enter,” replied the man’s deep voice.
He was sitting at his desk, a copy of Spinoza’s Ethics open in front of him. Not a good sign, thought Paul. It was the kind of book he read when in one of his moods. Nonetheless, Claudio raised his eyes to the teenager and managed a smile.
“Welcome, my son,” he said.
“Th-thank you, Father,” came Mathew’s shy response.
“I understand you’ll help me out here for a while, while Mr. Moore is away.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn’t it?” asked Claudio, with an ironic twinkle in his eye.
Mathew couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s great, Father, really.”
Paul observed the young man in his Metallica t-shirt and white trainers, and thought he was different enough to perhaps intrigue Claudio. Despite all the older priest’s professed aversion to human contact of late, the boy might help him get his mind off things a bit and mitigate his ill temper.
“Okay then,” said Paul, “I’ll be going.”
Claudio waved a distracted hand towards him. “Goodbye, Father Paul,” said Mathew, politely.
As he left the room, Paul shot a meaningful glance towards Claudio. Don’t be tough on him, that glance said, he’s been through a lot. The older man chuckled under his breath.
He left them, closing the door. Before leaving, he bowed his head against the door and listened.
“Is that a guitar, Father?” he heard Mathew ask, probably pointing towards the corner of the study where the old instrument lay, covered in dust.
“Indeed it is. It belonged to one of the local priests, I believe. Do you play?”
“Just a bit,” replied Mathew. Paul could hear the eagerness in his voice.
“Ah. That’s wonderful. Classical? I’d love to hear some Fernando Sor.”
“Ehm. Well. I’m more into heavy metal, Father,” replied Mathew, meekly.
Claudio let out a long, deep sigh.
Paul smiled and quietly left the church.
Chapter 13
Alice and Adrian
It took a few seconds for Adrian to spot them.
He’d followed Ally’s pointing finger, but all he saw were thick, pale banks of fog. He tried to pierce them, narrowing his eyelids and scanning the hazy view, but could see nothing. It was like sailing through hordes of ghostly apparitions, each floating aimlessly above the water and eerily blending in with the others.
Then there they were, emerging gradually, pushing their way through the mist like towering giants from a fairy tale: the White Cliffs of Dover.
He had seen them before, of course, when visiting his aunt, but only during the summer. Back then, they had seemed pretty and almost difficult to look at with the sunlight reflecting off their chalky surface. But now, in this constant cloud that had washed away the seasons, the cliffs looked surreal and almost alive.
As he gazed at them, with his lips slightly parted, he remembered a history lesson from school. Their teacher had told them that when the Romans had first travelled to the British Isles, it had possibly been their first foray into waters other than those of the Mediterranean. These alien waters belonged not
to that mare nostrum, the sea the Romans ruled and called their own, but were from the realm of an ancient, hostile divinity – the Titan Oceanus, one that pre-dated both their gods and the Greeks gods; a primordial force of nature they didn’t trust.
He pictured them as they might have been. Fearfully huddled in their ships, far from the glorious sun of Rome, sailing through the mists of these malevolent seas, governed by an unknown deity. A shiver of both fear and excitement travelled down his spine.
There were the cliffs. Beyond them lay England.
They were getting closer to Aunt Hellen’s house. Perhaps, soon, they would be safe.
* * *
They had veered north, dropping anchor next to an old weathered pier.
As the man fastened ropes to the moorage, the children went through their belongings to make sure they had everything.
Once again, the weather had turned foul and a thin, prickly rain beat down on them.
“Where are you headed?” asked the man.
Adrian considered whether it was wise to tell him, but before he could stop her Alice replied. “Bately,” she said. “Ady’s aunt lives there.”
The man drew a quick breath through his nose and nodded, looking towards the cliffs.
“I heard it’s quite safe there. You should be all right.”
They just stood there, three figures in the mist.
“We’re almost home, Ady,” said Alice, with a big smile. She was happy, which was good to see, yet Adrian couldn’t shake his uneasiness at the man’s presence. Alice turned, unexpectedly, towards the man and gave him a big hug.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, her cheeks sinking into his raincoat.
Adrian felt all his muscles tense up. He brought a hand to his coat, ready to draw the knife. But he lowered it, when he noticed the man’s expression.
He was standing still, as if frozen. His arms widened, palms facing each other. He stared, speechless, down towards Alice. Adrian saw him fold both his lips inside his mouth, and squeeze them between his rotten teeth. He then closed his eyes and cried a single, trembling tear before rapidly wiping it away when Alice withdrew from her embrace.
IMPACT_A Post-Apocalyptic Tale_The Complete Series Page 6