Chapter 24
Neeson
“This way.”
Neeson was running through Bately, followed by Lance Corporal Billings, the soldier who had accompanied him and their party to Ashford. It felt like months ago.
They ran past groups of civilians, who recognised them, and called out to him. Passing cries of what’s going on? why are they taking us to the castle? I demand an explanation!
“Keep going,” he told them, without stopping. “Just follow your Guard escort.”
This was not the time for explanations. They’d find out soon enough, anyway.
Neeson spotted Father Paul, Cathy and a few others, as they made their way to the castle. Paul and Cathy broke away from the group, and turned on a side road. He wondered what was going on, but had no time. They were intelligent enough to stay out of trouble.
Sean’s house was close by. The hacker kid wasn’t among those gathered within the castle walls, nor had they spotted him along the way. The Guard assigned to collect him said no one had opened the door, so he had moved on to someone else’s home.
Perhaps, they’d find him there, in his house, connected to the Internet, lost in his coding, unaware of what was happening outside.
Neeson suspected they wouldn’t.
They turned a corner, and found themselves in front of Sean’s house. The door was ajar.
He brought a finger to his lips. Billings nodded, and raised his service pistol. They crept towards the door.
A muffled voice came from inside.
Neeson tilted his head forwards. It was coming from just beyond that door. The words were indistinguishable.
Billings raised an eyebrow. What next, sir?
Neeson gestured to him. You open the door, I’ll enter. Billings dipped his chin, then stepped back, and blasted the door open with a powerful kick.
“Nobody move!” shouted Neeson, as he leaped inside. But his voice died down almost immediately. The house appeared to be empty. Except, of course, for the gagged woman in front of him.
* * *
Neeson removed the piece of cloth from the woman’s lips. Her face was covered in bruises, but a quick assessment told him she was okay. She’d been tied to a chair, and left in the middle of the small corridor, in the entrance.
“Anyone else in the house?” he asked her.
“No.” She looked at him with a mix of fear and distrust. “Just me.”
Neeson considered her for a second, then told Billings to search the house.
“I told you,” the woman protested, “it’s just me, in here.”
Neeson ignored her. “I will free you now, ma’am. You have nothing to fear from us, unless you attack us. Will I have your full cooperation?”
The woman sighed. “Yes. You will. Now please hurry up and get me out of here.”
Neeson bent down to untie the ropes. Who was this woman? He observed her thick, dark hair, the full lips beneath her stern eyes, and the dark shade of her Mediterranean complexion. No, he’d never seen her before. There was no forgetting a woman like this.
She finally stood up, massaging her wrists. “Thank you,” she said, her tone guarded. “They dragged me here and–”
“Later,” said Neeson. “Please wait here.”
He joined Billings, in what appeared to be Sean’s room. Drawers were open, clothes littering the floor. A dustless rectangular patch on a desk suggested a laptop computer had been removed.
“As she said, the house is empty, sir,” said Billings. He shifted a dirty sock aside, on the floor, with his boot, while considering the mess. “Looks like someone was in a hurry to leave.”
This was bad news, thought Neeson. If, as it seemed, Sean had aided the intruders by tampering with the surveillance systems, there was no knowing what other info he might have shared with them.
He bit his lip. This was going to be a long night.
“Let’s escort the woman to the castle. We need to interrogate her.”
* * *
They emerged onto the street, weapons raised, forming a small line – Neeson at the front, Billings in the back, and the woman between them. The air was thick, tension soaring through it like waves of electricity.
They advanced quickly, but cautiously. Most of the Guard was now stationed on the outskirts of town, with the remainder inside the castle, protecting the civilians. If they were to encounter the ’wraiths now, they’d be alone.
Seconds flew by. The woman followed them, obeying their instructions without uttering a word. She didn’t trust them, not yet, but she must’ve figured there was little she could do other than stick with them, thought Neeson.
Bately’s empty homes stood silent, at their sides. Doors left open after hurried departures, occasional personal belongings dropped or forgotten, scattered along the streets. This is what a war zone looks like, before an attack, thought Neeson.
Bately Castle was in sight. They dashed forwards, in a final sprint.
Then came the gunshots.
Neeson swung around, and pulled the woman down, in an attempt to protect her.
Billings lay dead on the ground, blood pouring out of him.
Immediately, Neeson’s military training kicked in. He suppressed all fear, all pain for his lost friend. Crouching down, he crept in front of the woman, putting himself in the line of fire.
The shots had been fired from somewhere behind them.
There they were. The ’wraiths. It was a small spearhead team of three. Two of them were wielding axes. One was pointing an AK-47 at them.
Neeson aimed at him, and fired. Two shots. The ’wraith went down.
“RUN!” he shouted, and the woman did.
They both leaped up, and darted towards the castle walls. Neeson was trying to ignore what he’d seen – not Billings’s dead body, not the small group of ’wraiths, but the hundreds and hundreds advancing behind them.
Suddenly, two other people were running alongside him and the woman. Paul and Cathy.
They all exchanged rapid glances. Muted, desperate questions shot from the eyes (are you okay? Who is this woman? Will we make it?), but postponed to later. Should they survive.
The castle gates were twenty feet away, now. Two members of the Guard were urgently gesturing towards them, ready to seal the gates.
Neeson fired a handful of blind shots behind him. The savage cries and laughter of the Pack entering town echoed through the brisk night air.
He had to warn the Guard about the real attack taking place from the west. He had to get these people to safety. He had to reach the castle gates.
And they did.
He stood by, as Paul, Cathy and that nameless woman stumbled through them. Then, just as his fellow soldiers were pulling them shut, he slipped in, too.
They were safe, for now.
* * *
Beyond the walls, the Guards and a small group of civilians began showering them with questions. “Everyone get inside! I have to talk to commander Hughes, right now,” shouted Neeson.
“Welcome to Bately,” Cathy said to the woman, with sad irony.
“You’re alive!” a voice called. Suddenly, Mathew emerged from the gathering, tears in his eyes. To Neeson’s surprise, he ran towards them, and flung his arms around the woman’s neck.
“Who are you?” asked Cathy.
Edward Moore replied. He was among those awaiting them, beyond the gates.
“That’s Lucy,” Moore said. “She’s my wife.”
Chapter 25
R3dPill
Sean shivered. It wasn’t just the cold.
He was peering through a window, from one of the sheds, by the ploughed fields just outside town. Row upon row of garden tools hung neatly from the thin wooden walls surrounding him. Frank Bailey’s work, probably. Right now, Mr. Bailey was likely observing the Pack’s advance, filled with concern for the fate of all his tidy sheds, for these fields that had saved the people of Bately from starvation.
He could see them, from here. The Pac
k. Like a nightmare legion from a fantasy novel, they marched into town, already pillaging and ravaging and destroying. Some rode horses, others advanced chaotically, on foot, following the lure of loot they happened to come across. Their torches flickered, blood-red against the backdrop of the moonless night.
Stay here, Jeremy had told him. I’ll come and fetch you, later.
Fetch him, to take him where? Sean’s concern must have been obvious, because Jeremy had laughed (a cold, unsympathetic laugh), and added, Don’t worry, you should be safe, here.
The old hippie hadn’t shared the details of the plan with him, but it hadn’t been too difficult to piece it together. Disable the surveillance cameras, set up the video loop. Clearly the objective was to attack.
He hadn’t cared.
But now, as he watched the attack unfold, he couldn’t stop the muscles in his abdomen from contracting violently, at every howl, every shattered window.
Cathy.
He saw it now. His decision to obey Jeremy’s orders had stemmed from the pain in his heart, and nothing else. Pure, vengeful jealousy. Cathy kissing that man, Moore. Cathy being indifferent to his feelings. To him.
Sean clenched his fists. The image of the two lovers still burned. It was strange – had he not looked to his monitor, in that exact instant, had he not witnessed that brief kiss, none of this would be happening. Maybe, this could have been just another, normal night in Bately – him sitting at his computer until the early hours of the morning, the city sleeping quietly around him.
Outside, a group of ’wraiths was breaking into a house. Sean watched as one of them smashed a window open, and climbed through it. Others peered inside, shouting something at their companion, spurring him on. They handed him a flaming torch, and he disappeared from view. After a second, fire erupted, inside the house. The first ’wraith jumped back out of the window, laughing. His clothes got caught on the splinters of glass, as he did so, and he fell flat on the ground. The others laughed harder, and began a savage dance, the burning house pouring a devilish light on their faces. Their long shadows quivered eerily, stretching out on the front lawn.
Sean leaned his back against the splintered wall, and let his body slide down, until his face was resting against his knees. He hugged his legs, the cold suddenly unbearable.
“What have I done?”
Outside, the howling grew louder.
Chapter 26
Rise of the Meteorwraiths
This wasn’t a raid. It was invasion.
Luke stared in horror, as the ’wraiths unleashed their violence upon Bately. The town he had loved, the place he’d called home until just a few days ago, was now being ravaged mercilessly.
Jake, hair wild and voice hoarse, was rallying his troops. “We’ve been shunned and mocked and spat upon!” he was shouting, as the ’wraiths flowed through the town in droves. “But tonight, my friends, my brothers, fellow Meteorwraiths of the Pack… tonight they will pay!”
Luke stumbled behind the advancing hordes, powerless and bewildered. All he could think of, was that he wanted all this to stop.
The cure. It had all began with the promise of a cure. That’s all he wanted, for himself and for Bately’s Afflicted. But there was no such thing, any more. They were all ’Wraiths of the Pack, now.
He had thought Cathy’s clinic was the main objective. And indeed, a large gang of ’wraiths had broken in, and was now carrying out box upon box of precious medicines. Luke knew the whole town depended on them, and always had – for the elderly, the sick, the children. Before, Cathy had carefully divided their scarce medical resources between them and the Afflicted. And although they were running low on medications, she had always done her best to please everyone she possibly could. Now, those medicines belonged to the Pack, and no one else.
But the clinic was only part of the plan. He glanced behind him, and spotted Jake. The Alpha ’Wraith stood, like a demonic general, overseeing the advance of his soldiers. His fierce, one-eyed gaze was focused not on taking, but taking over.
He wished Ana was there, at his side, but female ’wraiths were not allowed to take part in the attacks, and had been left to guard the Pack’s lair.
“Kick it open!” came a cry, somewhere close.
A few ’wraiths had gathered in front of the church, and were trying to break their way in, but its old, heavy doors were proving difficult to force open.
“Stop that!” cried Luke.
A young ’wraith looked up at him. Luke had heard the others call him Dimwit. He was little more than a boy, and eager to please his elders.
The two ’wraiths standing beside Dimwit had paused, the anger in Luke’s voice causing them to hesitate.
The younger ’wraith looked up at him. “Why?” he asked.
But Luke could not answer that question. The church had been the first place he had entered, when he arrived in Bately. Father Paul had welcomed him. It had always been a second home, for him, a place he loved, not only as man of faith. There was no way of conveying his love for it, for the whole town, to these thugs. Words lost meaning, in the face of indifference.
“Just don’t,” came his lame reply. “Leave it alone.”
One of the other ’wraiths studied Luke for an instant, then said, “Come on guys, let’s go somewhere else. Plenty more places to loot, ’round here.”
But Dimwit stepped forward, shoving his face in front of Luke’s. “You’re one of the Afflicted, ain’tcha?” He spat out the word Afflicted, as if the Bately ’wraiths were little more than traitors. “You only just joined the Pack.” The young boy looked around, making sure the others were getting all this. “I say you piss off, and let us smash this place open.”
Punch.
Luke’s fist flew through the air, even before he realised what he was doing. It landed, hard, on Dimwit’s cheek. The kid’s head jerked to the side, and he dropped to the ground. Two of his teeth lay beside him.
The others took a step back. “You’re out of order, mate,” one of them said. When Dimwit looked up at Luke, his eyes were wide and filled with tears. The eyes of a scared child. He scrambled to his feet, gaze glued to Luke, for fear he might strike again. Then, he turned, and ran. The others followed him, throwing hostile glances over their shoulders.
Luke couldn’t believe it. He had never struck anyone, in his entire life. “Sorry,” he whispered, uselessly.
“Having second thoughts, are we?”
The voice had come out of nowhere. Luke turned, and found Jeremy standing beside him, his ever-present smile contrasting with the mayhem surrounding them. Luke couldn’t help but notice how comfortable the old man looked, as if everything were just fine.
“This… this isn’t what I wanted,” said Luke, his voice broken.
Jeremy laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “What is it, my friend?” he asked.
Luke shook his head. “It’s just that, I don’t understand… why this attack? I just wanted the sick to be cured…”
Jeremy nodded, but when he spoke, it was like he hadn’t heard Luke’s words. Looking towards the church, he asked, “You care for this place, do you, Luke?”
“I do, yes.” It was the truth.
Jeremy removed his hand from Luke’s shoulder. A deep, rumbling sound began, somewhere deep inside his chest. The nauseating noise of gathering phlegm. To Luke’s astonishment, Jeremy spat a fat, gooey gob against the church doors. Then, wiping away filaments of saliva that still dangled from his chin, he looked at him, and said, “The gods of the old world are dead, Luke. Gone. And their filthy proselytisers, like your friend Father Paul, will be the first sacrifices on the altar of the new ones.”
Jeremy’s smile returned. “Now, get out of my way, you scabby monstrosity.”
The old man shoved him aside, and walked off.
* * *
Cathy’s sense of reality appeared to be slipping away, seeping through the cracks of the ancient castle, shattered by the cries and the destruction beyond its walls.
Yet, she couldn’t let herself be overcome by it all. There was too much to do.
She clutched the assault rifle she’d been handed against her chest, and kept running.
Bill had filled them in, in short, hasty words. A bit sketchy, but they had got most of the information that mattered – the feint attack from the north, something about the surveillance cameras being tampered with, the bulk of the Guard currently unable to be there and protect them from the real assault.
“But they’re on their way,” Bill added. “In the meantime, we must make do with what we have.”
Ten or so Guard members were with them, and would do all they could to defend the castle. But more hands were needed. Neeson and his men began handing out firearms to a select few. “Women, children and men who have no firearm training stay inside,” Bill had said. “Follow the corridors to the inner hall, two armed Guards will stay with you, in case the ’wraiths break through the gates.”
If the ’wraiths got in, two armed guards would make little difference, thought Cathy.
“The others will head to the walls. We’re going to fire on the Pack from up there. We have to keep them busy while the rest of our forces converge here.”
Cathy noticed how naturally Bill had acclimated himself to the role of commander-in-chief. She remembered the Council meeting in which they voted to temporarily transfer all decision-making powers into his hands, in case of an attack. So far, raids had, for the most part, been intercepted before they reached town, thanks to his management of the Guard, and to Sean’s CCTV system. This was the first time full powers had actually been transferred to Bill. No vote had taken place, (there had been no time, nor need) but everyone seemed to be happy to have someone to take orders from.
As the flow of people began heading towards the innermost rooms of Bately Castle, Cathy walked up to him. He was busy conferring with a few of the others. When he saw her, he said, “Sorry, Cathy, women are to stay inside.”
“Bill,” she began, “I’m not here to discuss this. I want a weapon. I’m going to do my bit.” Her voice was firm. “Before heading to Ashford, I received a bit of training, remember? I can shoot.”
IMPACT_A Post-Apocalyptic Tale_The Complete Series Page 25