The Brink

by Pass, Martyn J.

  Within the camp the car park had been turned into the main living area - the warmer, more private shelter of the shops being used for other purposes and for those who had a greater need for them, such as the medics and the armourers. Great big tents, gazebos and makeshift wooden shelters had been erected on every square inch of tarmac and even caravans had been found and dragged into neat orderly lines for the more needy.

  Orderly. That was the by-word of every one of Teague’s men. It ensured clear walkways between shelters. It rationed out every piece of kit, every crumb of bread and every drop of water. It was a way of life to them. A mantra to meditate on during the evening and the first word on their lips when they woke in the morning. Orderly. They dreamt of order. They drank order. They ate and breathed order.

  The problem was that it bored Alan to his very core and made him feel that survival in this new inhospitable world had to be carried out in an orderly fashion; to be metered out piece-meal with no unscheduled activity, no wasted thoughts or ideas or emotion that wasn’t ordered just so. It was stifling and it was only sheer obligation to duty that kept him there. Although he claimed no ethos and had no intention of developing one, his former life of working for himself before the disaster had given him a strong sense of duty, of fulfilling whatever commitment he’d made or offered. Back then it’d been bad for business if he’d gone back on a promise but now he felt like he had even more to lose. In this world people were putting their lives in the hands of a few brave volunteers and the only currency they dealt in was their word. If Alan hadn’t kept his word then Henry and his family would be dead. It wasn’t an un-mowed lawn or a weedy flower bed - it was life or death.

  He reached the complex entrance and greeted the guard at the door. It was Steve and he’d been recruited after another settlement was hit hard by a gang of thugs and he’d been able to get the children there to safety single-handedly. It was that kind of courage that appealed to Teague and made him just the kind of man to have on his team.

  “Mr Harding, you’re back sir,” he said with military precision. “Will you be looking for the Captain?”

  “Yeah. Is he in?”

  “Aye sir. He’s in the map room and he said to forward you on to him when you showed up.”

  “Thanks Steve.”

  The guard stepped aside and let him pass; stroking Moll as she went by and who, in turn, stopped and wagged her tail again. Alan didn’t wait for her but walked into the stifling heat of the shopping centre and made his way along the concourse. He passed people he knew, people he’d seen around camp and he received the occasional nod from some of the troops he’d gone out on patrol with. It was hard to do much else given that the walkway was divided by barriers to make the foot traffic orderly and any stopping was considered almost heretical.

  At the map room door, which was converted into a make-shift headquarters out of an old coffee shop, he met Janet just as she was leaving and they stopped outside the doorway to talk.

  “Jesus, Alan - I’ve spoken to Henry and he told me what happened. Are you okay? My God - that’s not your blood, is it?”

  Janet was a compact woman with long, flowing hair the colour of good cider which she let fall over her combat shirt and fatigues. She was one of Teague’s former unit - one of many tasked with controlling the riots around Manchester during the disaster. She’d followed him to the shopping centre when the system had broken down and she was confident that she’d drawn her last real pay cheque. Bubbly, alert and eager to see orderly actions carried out in just such an orderly fashion, she complimented Teague the way butter compliments bread.

  “No, not really,” he replied, wishing he’d taken the smock off in the first place. “How are they holding up?”

  “He and Carol were a bag of nerves when they radioed in but we got to them in 30 minutes and brought them home. You took a risk letting them drive back alone. What was so important?”

  “Henry mentioned that the ones who’d attacked him had been using cars and I couldn’t just drive away and let them have that kind of range. We’ve got a couple of settlements in that area and any kind of vehicle in Scavenger hands is worth taking the time to scupper.”

  “So you took it upon yourself to deal with them,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Yes.”

  Janet tutted in her comical way and he couldn’t help but think that maybe she meant it; that his actions had been ‘out of order’, meaning not according to the strict, regimental methods of the Captain and a telling off was on the cards.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Henry and his family are safe and the scum that pick at the corpse of our old world have been deprived of their transport.”

  She leaned a little closer and whispered to him. “You destroyed them, yes?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t have returned if I hadn’t achieved my objective,” he replied.

  “Your objective, eh?”

  She grinned and stepped around him, heading back out to the car park camping grounds. Alan watched her leave and sighed. Even her walk was orderly.

  “Harding - that was a jolly nice bit of work you did out there. Come in, man, come in and take a seat. That isn’t your blood I hope.”

  Captain Teague sat behind the long map table with his feet up just as the rest of his advisors began to leave through the door. He had one of those small espresso cups in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other and Alan noticed that his little finger was extended as he lifted the coffee to his lips.

  Teague was one of the old school of British Officers who’d come straight out of the womb and into Sandhurst with only a snifter of brandy in between the transition. He wore his stiff, ironed uniform as if it were on loan from deity and he drank his coffee as if a spillage anywhere upon it might mean sudden death. His hair, for what it was, had been cut short and slicked with some sort of product and his neatly trimmed moustache was like a narrow, black badge of office proclaiming his right to be considered military royalty.

  To Alan he was everything he despised about his experience of the archaic class system that, at the time of the disaster, had been as strong as ever and threatened to begin anew in the ragged remnants of the old. But as a leader Alan couldn’t fault him for all that and despite his obvious sense of superiority to the predominately northern people in his camp, Teague was a gentleman and treated everyone with kindness and forbearance and even dared to tell a ‘witty jape’ once every blue moon. For that Alan was willing to overlook the rest, knowing that his own taciturn and at times misanthropic nature might have been just as irritating to him.

  “It’s not,” replied Alan, looking down at the stain and taking a seat near the table. “But it’s done and at least-”

  “I’m sorry my dear chap but I’ll have to stop you there and say what I’ve got to say - ugly as it is on my lips.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, it’s this - you were damn rash and you stepped outside of my orders. It isn’t the first time, I know, but there it is and I have to say that in spite of the success of the mission it was a damn fool-hardy idea to go back and leave Henry and his family to fend for themselves. What if something had happened? What if they were dead now instead of gorging themselves on their breakfasts? What then?”

  Alan felt his face turn hot and red but held onto the fact that he’d done a good turn for the survivors in taking out those vehicles.

  “I’m sorry,” he replied, looking down at the floor. “It was a risk I was willing to take.”

  “But not one that Henry, Carol or Mikey were willing to take. Or that baby, bless it.”

  Teague stood and drained his cup, then began to walk back and forth near his end of the table with his hands clasped behind his back.

  “I did you a good turn in letting you train with my team and see how we do things. I did you another when you asked to go on patrol with them. I saw promise, I saw a skill set I could use in keeping this bloody wreck of a world afloat. If it were up to me I’d have a battalion of
the kinds of soldiers I worked with before the disaster so you lot could jolly-well enjoy your time without worrying for scum like those monsters who attacked the solar collector team.”

  He stopped pacing and faced him. “But I don’t have those resources anymore and probably won’t have again. I’ve got to make do with what I can find and so far I’ve considered myself blessed with the likes of you and Steven and the others.”

  He resumed pacing and the floor creaked beneath his shining boots with their orderly laces.

  “So it hurts all the more when the very people I rely upon let me down. Your mission objectives were clear, were they not?”

  “They were,” he replied.

  “And yet you disobeyed me. Why?”

  “I saw a chance to make a difference and I took it.”

  “You were already making a difference. Henry says you killed at least a dozen of them in order to rescue him. Is that not difference enough?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll never be enough,” he began, standing, suddenly feeling very weary and tired. “People are dying out there. They’re being eaten - literally - by these vultures and I don’t feel like we’re doing enough, if I’m honest. I feel like we should be doing more.”

  “More, you say?”

  “Yes, more. A lot more. Not just standing around here with our maps and plans and bull shit and actually doing something.”

  “You don’t think that this important planning,” he said, holding up the corner of the area map that was spread like a cloth upon the table. “Is doing something?”

  “What are we doing? That’s my question.”

  Teague looked at the map and turned it round so that it was orientated with north facing the door and south heading in their direction.

  “We’re planning to advance to a known settlement where we can regroup with other survivors, other trained men and women and thus be stronger for it. That’s what we’re doing and with all due respect, Mr Harding, that’s pretty big in my book. Don’t you agree?”

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “North. 150 miles. There’s a holiday camp up there just on the other side of the border where we’ve had reason to believe another friendly settlement has recently occupied.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Alan.

  “I guess this ‘bull shit’ must be actually doing something after all.” He traced a line on the map with a delicate forefinger that had a neatly trimmed nail at the end. “We follow the motorway north as much as we can and turn off here...” He stopped on a highlighted town. “Then west until we reach the foot of the hills here, then north to the camp.”

  “How do you know they’re friendly?” he asked.

  “Their leader is an old friend of mine, served with me in Syria. I trust him and therefore you must. He’s gathered as many of his former team mates as he can and, combined with our resources, should make the site damn-near impregnable.”

  Alan sat back down and sighed. Teague followed, placing his feet back on the desk and crossing them at the ankles.

  “I’m telling you all this before I’ve even told my own team. Do you know why?” He fixed Alan with a commanding gaze, a parade ground gaze that made him feel like he was under some kind of test to which he didn’t have any of the answers.

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Because I see potential in you. Clichéd, maybe, but still the truth of the matter. In the Army it was my job to keep an eye out for officer material, for Squad Leaders, in short, for anyone who was particularly useful to the service. I look at you with the same eye and see someone who isn’t afraid to use his initiative, to think on the spot, to improvise.

  “I don’t wish to overinflate your ego but the people around here respect you. They hear me and they obey but more and more they look to you as well. You’re one of them, you take the time to talk, to chat, gosh - you’ve rescued half of them in one way or another, and they love you for it.”

  Moll chose this moment to force her way in through the closed door, panting and dribbling onto the planks beneath her paws. She saw Alan and made a move towards Teague who threw her a piece of cheese off a side table.

  “They love that monstrous beast too but I’ll be damned if I know why.”

  Moll performed her usual mechanical grin and went and sat at his feet, looking up at him.

  “But you go too far. You let yourself, and indeed us, down with your cavalier attitude. I understand. You were self-employed, you were your own boss and circumstances have taken that away from you. Now you’re looking for that same fulfilment and here it is, yet it’s structured and orderly and you’re jittery, you don’t like how it feels and you want to be your own boss again, planting flowers and landscaping rich people’s houses.”

  It wasn’t said with scorn like some might. Teague was above that kind of childish remark but it was said in the manner he intended - that it was the trade of the past and useless for the present climate. He was right. Alan had thrown himself into Teague’s group, trained hard and learned all that he could knowing that by himself he had little to offer. With the luxury of a well-defended settlement, growing things would be possible again and that knowledge would prove invaluable. For the time being, Alan knew he had to learn new skills if he wanted to make a difference and Teague had encouraged that.

  Moll laid out on her side and Teague eased himself back in his chair, his eyes never leaving Alan’s.

  “But you must change,” he continued. “You’ll see that plans and orders are things to be cherished, that with the best will in the world a man can drive his own ship, but without his fellow man he’ll run aground and be dashed upon the rocks. You need to learn that we’re a team, that we’re more effective at ‘making a difference’ as a solid, uniform body and not just a rag-tag bunch of misfits. That might be good enough for the television but not for myself, not for Captain Teague.”

  Alan nodded.

  “You kept your story to yourself and as far as I know you’ve never spoken about how you came to be alive today when so many died. I respect that. I’ll hazard a guess that you suffered like we all did in those first months, that you saw your loved ones perish. That you didn’t know if there was hope or even a chance to hope.”

  Alan felt the pressure inside, felt the secrets trying to bubble to the surface but he couldn’t confide in this man. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  “We all went through them and yet here we are, daring to hope that there might be a future after all. A primitive one, maybe, but a future for the human race none the less.”

  He planted his feet on the floor again and Moll looked at him. Alan was aware that the coffee pot was boiling away on the hot plate behind him. It popped and spat and Teague got up to pour two more tiny cups, carrying one over to him.

  “But that hope needs care. It needs nurture, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he replied. The coffee was good and strong.

  “Like a seedling in a pot. You water. You feed. You keep it warm and wait for the first signs of growth and when it’s time, you replant into a bigger pot. More care. Time consuming care. Do you see where I’m going here?” he grinned with his own clever mirth.

  “I think I might,” laughed Alan.

  “That’s the spirit. We’re the gardeners of a new world, you and I, and all the people here. We endured the darkness, the death, the famine and yet the first signs of growth broke through the soil and reached for the sun.”

  He sat and breathed the aroma of his coffee with a loud sigh.

  “But it’s time to replant. We need a bigger pot and I know where one is. But it’s going to be traumatic and our hands are duty-bound to get mucky. Are you up for that?”

  “I think I can cope with a bit of dirt.”

  “From the looks of that smock it would appear you can. So. What’s it to be? Order and discipline or more of your lone-wolf work? Decide now because I need yo
u on board. I’ll need your will and your drive when we make the move.”

  “I think I understand. Maybe-” he was about to say something more, to perhaps explain why he was the way he was, maybe even explain about Longsteel, but the chance never came. Steve knocked twice on the open door and asked for the Captain to follow him outside.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry but you must excuse me. We’ll visit this conversation again when the hard work is done and the harder stuff is ahead.”

  As he was about to leave, Alan stood and said, “You’re right. I’ll stay in line and follow the plan. I’ve been a bit of an idiot and I apologise.”

  Teague stopped and smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “Thank you. For a moment I feared the worst. If you’ll excuse me...”

  Alan headed back out through the concourse, thinking about what Teague had said. Maybe he was out of line, he thought as he meandered his way back outside. Maybe Teague was right and it was time he toed the line and stopped trying to do things his way. Teague had definitely been right about one thing though - he hadn’t gotten out of the habit of being his own boss. Even as he thought about following a stricter chain of command he felt his anger swell and thoughts of fleeing crossed his mind. Out in the wilds he’d be his own man again with only Moll as his companion. Could he do that? He loved people too much though. He’d find another settlement and start all over again. He knew he wasn’t meant to be a loner but it sometimes felt to him like his default position, like it was a kind of defence mechanism he couldn’t shake off.

  He made his way towards the eastern side of the complex and walked down the orderly rows of tents and dwellings erected there. Children were kicking a ball about and he had to rush through them as they kicked it around him, laughing and running over to stroke Moll. He looked at them, wondering how they kept so happy despite the danger that lurked outside the complex and put it down to the ignorance of youth. It was the kind of ignorance he wanted for himself; to forget it all for an hour and relax, maybe even have some fun. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had something resembling fun. When Teague’s team weren’t on patrol or on duty they often talked amongst themselves or played a few hands of poker but this wasn’t the kind of fun he had in mind.