The Stolen Days of John Mann

by Charles Barrow

  Oddly, he still missed Dr Penn, who’d been the only person who’d cared for him after he’d been transferred to the tank. In reality of course he’d been his jailer, but his hands had probably been tied. It wasn’t Penn who denied him visits from his family, but it was Penn who’d had to suffer his rages.

  It was because the good Doctor had explained the choke’s origins in detail that Mann knew as much as he did about the virus he carried. He struggled now to remember all the medical terms but the tales of a mutating virus and a faulty vaccine that helped spread rather than check its advance, and the term Perfect Storm of Infection were burned into his memory. At the time it had all sounded like a God given, righteous plague and it was in him and he had the power of it. It shamed him now to remember that in anger he’d once spat full in Penn’s masked face, and that he used to torment an endless stream of hapless nurses by flicking spittle at them. But he had a darker memory too of the occasion he’d raised such bedlam that a guard was called to dart him. It was the first time it had happened and it tempered his rages. Penn told him he’d been out for only two hours but he knew that wasn’t true. Food he had stashed under his bunk had mouldered since he’d last looked. He realised then that if they chose to they could keep him sedated permanently and harvest him for what they wanted, perhaps all they were waiting for was an excuse. The idea had terrified him.

  Then one day Penn had simply vanished, to be replaced the next by Dr Russell. She came to introduce herself and tell him there would be some changes and more ominously that the Program would have to be stepped up. She wouldn’t even acknowledge his questions about Dr Penn’s whereabouts. He knew she was somehow to be feared, and also that she was unused to dealing with people because she spoke to him loudly and slowly as if he’d been born with a dented head. The next day she had tried to appear more friendly and had enquired after his health and then forced a sudden smile, showing all her teeth like a dog in an alley. The alarmed look on his face must have told all because she never smiled at him again through the dark years she worked on him.

  Chapter Ten

  The rain fell onto the road in sheets and ran off into runnels on either side. Mann stared out of the checkpoint hut window at all the water and hoped it wouldn’t slow his journey into the city. The hut was warm from the wood stove in the corner and the inside of Mann’s muffler was heavy with beads of moisture but for appearances sake he needed to keep it in place. Beside him Charlie checked all his documentation; I.D. papers, licence to dispense herbal remedies, fuel ration book. Mann had no idea why the men at checkpoints were all nicknamed Charlie but they all seemed happy to be so.

  Charlie adjusted his mask, ‘Everything seems to be in order Father Moore, I’ll just need to verify your vaccine record.’

  Mann sat at the desk and rolled up his sleeve to expose the tattoo Amir had given him earlier.

  ‘It's fresh.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mann, ‘I got it two days ago in Shale. I never heal fast.’

  ‘This booster was issued two months ago, why the delay in getting it?’

  ‘I travel far and wide, I’m often deep in the countryside and don’t always hear about these things immediately.’

  ‘They are always flagged in broadcasts.’

  ‘I know, but the old and sick that I visit don’t always have the means to receive them.’ Mann gave what he hoped was an apologetic look.

  ‘Between you and me Father, word’s come down it will soon be illegal to travel without a portable set. There will be heavy fines levied for people missing broadcasts. Best pick up a winding radio next time you claim fuel, so you’re prepared.’

  Mann thanked him for the advice and watched as Charlie began to copy down the last few images from Mann’s tattoo onto an official form. Mann was surprised and wary ‘You record these things now?’

  ‘New orders,’ Charlie replied, ‘We have to record them on your letter of transit.’

  ‘But I have them recorded on my arm.’

  ‘I know Father, makes no sense to me either. Now, where was your last recorded stop?’

  ‘I slept in the car for the last few nights, so Picton was the last town I visited.’ Mann rolled his sleeve back down as Charlie recorded his answer.

  ‘And what brings you to Brighton?’

  ‘Beyond attending to the needs of its Godless flock?’ Mann levelled a steady gaze at the guard who returned his look for a moment before recording the answer on the forms in front of him.

  ‘Preaching.’ Charlie completed the rest of the duplicate forms in silence, signed both and handed one to Mann. ‘I should warn you,’ he continued, ‘that the city is full of people who wouldn’t think twice about rolling a man of the cloth.’

  ‘Then they’re probably the ones I most need to reach.’ Replied Mann.

  Charlie laughed ‘I wish my faith was as sturdy a shield as yours Father.’

  Mann paused for a moment before asking, ‘I hear the Scandinavians are the worst of a heathen bunch.’ He knew he shouldn’t push too hard but he wanted to shake the tree to see what might fall in his lap, ‘Where would I find them gathered?’

  ‘It’s true there are increasing numbers from those parts crossing into Scotland and moving south, driven by their harsher winters I suppose. They trade with the Russians so they always bear watching. You might try the eastern edge of the city. A few favour those streets.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Mann stood. ‘You’ll want to search the car?’

  Charlie laughed again ‘You don’t strike me as a mischief maker Father. You can be on your way.’ He pulled on his heavy coat and both men stepped out into the foul weather.

  Chapter Eleven

  Keen stepped out into the front yard to greet Amir as he eased the horse to a halt beside the barn and dismounted from the cart. She picked her way across the soft ground to his side. ‘I’m thinking we should cross to Brighton, join John in his search.’ She said.

  ‘Hello lover, how was your time at market?’

  Keen took the rebuke. ‘I’m sorry.’ She held Amir close and kissed him. ‘Good trip?’

  Amir smiled, ‘Good trip.’

  ‘I do think he will need us there.’

  ‘Did he send a message?’ Amir asked and Keen shook her head. ‘And if we leave and he tries to reach us?’

  ‘We’d be on the road.’

  ‘To Treader’s sure, but not to where John may actually need us.’ Amir countered.

  Keen sighed and kicked at a clump of grass. ‘I hate to wait.’

  ‘I know that.’ Amir said, ‘I need to get Sorrel into the barn. You need to heat a lot of water.’ Keen looked puzzled. Amir began to unharness the horse, a serious look on his face. ‘I need a bath woman, and after that you and I will need still more hot water. For coffee.’ His face split into a wide grin and her eyes flew wide and she laughed like a child at Christmas.

  ‘How is it possible you got that?’

  ‘I have my means.’

  ‘Who did you trade with? What did you trade?’

  The smile faded from Amir’s face. ‘You think me only good for mixing wax and oils, but I have other uses. I ran with you and John and the others, I risked all too. I can still track and forage and fix things for you.’

  Keen came to him and held him again. ‘I know your skills Sir, and I thank heaven for you everyday. If I forget to tell you so then that’s to my shame.’

  Amir looked to the wooded fields beyond the yard, ‘I sometimes miss the fight don’t you?’

  ‘Hardly.’ Keen frowned, but the upward tilt of her jaw told Amir that she wasn't speaking true.

  ‘The intrigue, living by our wits, day to day?’

  ‘Living by chance, many had luck that didn’t hold.’

  ‘You alone made the luck that brought us through. You think the fight is really won?’

  ‘We’ll see how the Food Council fares. If they can keep our bellies full then our hearts should follow. The new winter quotas will stand as a test.’

  ‘
So we watch and wait?’

  She told him that waiting and watching were what she did best.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mann stepped further back into the shadows of the doorway and waited for the crew of thugs to pass. They were in drink and full of fight, looking for someone to ill use, or press even. Offshore he could see the ship’s silhouetted against the moonlit sky and knew that not all their crew would have put to sea willingly.

  He scanned the rest of the street for threat but there was none, not on the ground nor seemingly in the burned out shops or the gutted rooms above. Some buildings had lost their frontage entirely so all the rooms were open to the night. Faded and peeling patterned paper on the walls gave a backdrop to dank weeds growing high along the ledges at the front. He fancied he saw an animal weave through some tall grass up there, a fox perhaps or a cat, but it was gone before he could fix it in the gloom. No lights shone on the street at all save for that of the moon which leeched the colour out of the scene and returned flat, grey pavements, long black shadows, and puddles full of silver ripples.

  He’d left the car hidden a mile out of town and made his way to the centre on foot. He knew full well where to locate Treader and was sure of his way to the building though he didn’t know what barriers if any he’d have to cross in the streets ahead. It had been ten years since he’d set foot in Brighton and the place was much changed and nothing he saw was an improvement on what it had been. He’d gone to ground here with Keen and the others after they’d sprung him from the Facility. The military had made incursions each day searching for them, torching buildings, rounding up innocents for questioning. The residents had organised constant guerrilla attacks on the army, resenting their presence, beating them back on occasion, such was the resilience of the local militia. Even so, he and the others had been flushed twice but had slipped the net to reach another safe house. Lives had been lost, Marshall and Peter, and lives had been taken. He remembered agonising that his life could be worth so many others. Keen had struck him hard. Didn’t he know what the Facility was for? Didn’t he know how many lives had already been lost inside to ‘research’? And rumour had it they had been trying to make weapons of war off him. He didn’t know any of this, though deep down he had suspected some of it. He didn’t know either that the Facility had been torched after he’d been got to safe distance, so all the stockpiles of his fluids, and more, were destroyed. Nor did he know that his mother and father had been held for the last six months of his stay in another part of the Facility and endlessly tested by Russell for the same gene that made him immune. He wept in Keen’s arms as she told him they’d both perished, ended by exposure to their own son's spores.

  Mann’s eyes pricked with hot tears now as he crossed the street into a deeper pocket of shadow. It was the tears blurred his vision to the skulking youth in the doorway, and allowed him to be blind-sided. Luckily, the cosh was poorly wielded and although Mann saw an explosion of green stars and hit the ground in a fog of pain he didn’t black out. The youth, hooded and in dark rags, moved in to finish him with another blow but Mann wasn’t to be caught twice and kicked the youth’s legs out from under him and was up and sitting on his chest before the boy knew he’d been struck. Mann looked into wild eyes, alive with anger and fear. The youth bucked beneath him but Mann had him pinned. He pulled aside his own muffler and then removed the mask from the youth’s face, taking in the pocked and ravaged skin.

  ‘Off me, you mad fuck. Get off me.’ The youth screamed and Mann was unnerved by his ferocity and, worried his shouts would carry, scanned the street. The youth seized on Mann’s moment of distraction and bucked again getting his arm free, a knife suddenly glinting in his hand. Mann grabbed for the knife hand but the youth was too quick and all Mann could do was parry a blow aimed at his chest. He was even less prepared for the speed of the second strike that slashed the blade across his thigh. He struck the youth hard across the mouth with the back of his hand and seized his opportunity to push himself away and crab backwards into the lee of a building. His heart was racing and he felt the heat build in his chest. In the distance he heard raised voices getting closer. He wanted to avoid attracting a crowd at all costs. The youth was on his feet in moments and heading for Mann again, his face twisted in fury. Mann side-stepped the charge and used the youth’s momentum to propel him headfirst into a wall at speed. The noise was sickening and Mann felt the vibration through the pavement under his feet. He paused to check that the youth was down for good, and then he sprinted away up the street, away from the coming voices.

  Chapter Thirteen

  All morning Russell had been jolted around in the rear seat of a jeep. She dimly recalled her grandma singing a yearning song about country roads but for sure it didn’t celebrate these rutted tracks.

  She’d spent the day travelling to and from the farmhouse where Mann had resurfaced. She’d felt the need to be where he’d been, see what he’d seen. She needed to feel close to him. She’d given the choke corpse a cursory glance, the local doctor who’d attended the body had not misled them in his report. Then she’d studied two spills of blood on the floor and decided neither were his. Nothing so mundane as a bullet would carry him off. Over the years she’d come to think of him as immortal.

  Further investigations had found a woman’s body buried nearby accounting for one bloodstain. A neighbour told of a teenage boy, and there was no sign of him. His was the other gore, she thought, though not dead. Had the choke victim been one of a raid gang who’d taken him, leaving Mann to bury the boy’s mother? Perhaps Mann had the boy with him, or was in pursuit of him and his captors. That showed signs of involvement on Mann’s part. Russell was momentarily distracted by a pang of jealousy, but she dismissed it and her thoughts returned to the task at hand. She felt she knew the story of what had occurred in this kitchen and in its aftermath. She was pleased with her reasoning, pleased to be doing something akin to proper work again. The neighbour had also spoken of a stranger dressed in black, with a brimmed hat and a car with a blue flash. A preacher. He’d been seen foraging in the fields with the mother. Russell had questioned the neighbour closely, even had her escort draw his gun with menace but no more news could be got. Mann travelling as a preacher, perhaps with or in pursuit of a boy, she had pieces of a picture at least, more than she’d had at dawn that day.

  Back in the jeep for the return journey Russell mused on her discoveries. A preacher would be easier to track, they were licensed, had vehicles that needed petrol and repairs. Who were the woman and boy to Mann, a substitute family? What would Mann do with the motherless boy now? This development may make him easier to trace too. She looked at the watch on her wrist and tapped at the glass, she was impatient to be back at the Facility.

  The sun strobed through the trees as the car passed them at speed, forcing her to shield her eyes against the rapid flick, flick, flick of the light through the window. She felt a tug at her thoughts and a lurch as a memory forced its way forward despite her best efforts to keep it back. She was aged six and sitting in a darkened room watching a home movie with her grandfather. Faded colour images flicked across the wall, her father as a boy chasing a black dog around a summer garden she didn’t know. There was no sound but the quick, ticking whirr of the projector, even when her boy-faced father laughed directly into the camera lens she couldn’t hear him.

  Then, in another place and time, her young daughter Evie was running across a summer yard while her faithful dog yapped about her feet. She ran straight to the car, where Russell herself sat, and slapped her hand frantically against the glass, her face awash with tears and terror, she begged her mother to be let in. Russell’s husband was already convulsing on the steps of the porch beyond. Evie’s cries faded until all Russell could hear was her own heartbeat thud in her ears, as if she was deep underwater. She didn’t hear her own sobs as she placed her open palm against Evie’s on the other side of the window, nor the click of the door lock catch as she engaged it. The dog barked excitedly but
remained mute to Russell, and the sound of Evie choking went unheard too.

  Two hours later when the jeep pulled up outside the Facility she was in a dark mood. She was met at the door by the Private who she’d dismissed from her office yesterday, he clearly had even less brains than the previous drooler, Vincent, that Smith had assigned her. The draft had certainly swelled the ranks of personnel but it hadn’t increased the IQ level. Maybe this was to be expected when they fished in so shallow a pond and the recruits were there simply for the bed and board and not because the army was in their blood. She brushed past him as he addressed her.

  ‘Doctor Russell,’ He tried again.

  She pulled up short and rounded on him. ‘Unless you have news of exceptional quality boy you’d better have a very good reason for flapping your jaws at me.’

  ‘I’ve decoded a message Ma’am. It was pushed out three days ago and its echo still reverberates through the chatter in Brighton.’