Desperately she turned back to face David and tried with all her remaining strength to free, push and drag him from the water-filled cabin and towards the shattered windscreen. She needed him awake and able to swim both of them to the top of the lake. Suddenly, her feet became entangled with the straps of the drifting seat belts. She struggled and tried desperately to free herself, but only succeeded in making her fatal predicament worse.
Furiously, she kicked and shook her feet until eventually she felt herself running out of air. She didn't know how much longer she could resist the urge to inhale a huge gulp of water. As she drifted into an unconscious state and the life drained out of her, she swore, for one last moment, that she could see the image of her brothers along with her father. They were all swimming towards her through the clear waters of the loch, coming for her like some mystical underwater angels.
As her vision turned to darkness, she imagined they were helping her untangle her feet from the seat belts, then pulling and dragging her back up towards the surface of the loch.
Chapter 25
David awoke.
His whole body ached. He'd never felt so physically sore, fatigued and broken before. He'd felt mentally broken in the past, like the way he'd felt in the weeks and months after Ashley's death. But he'd never hurt physically like this.
His shoulder ached most of all. Then he remembered being shot there and maybe even somewhere else too, although he couldn't remember exactly when that had occurred. Perhaps a day or so ago, possibly even a week or a month. He had lost all concept of time in those first few hazy waking moments.
Eventually, he opened his eyes. It was dim all around, but a dark red dim that made him feel like he was inside a womb. His eyes scanned the short length of the dark veined roof he laid underneath, only a metre or two above his head. Then he realised he was actually inside a big red tent.
As his eyes adjusted, David began to sense a much more brighter light coming in from behind him. Still flat on his back he gently stretched his head back while rolling his eyes almost into his upper skull so he could see what the hell was behind him. Daylight seemed to be seeping in from the half-folded tent doorway. The light was borderline bright but not as intense as overhead sunlight, which gave the impression the sun was about to set if it hadn't already done so.
Staring outside from that angle, David could make out various rows of upside-down trees and bushes. Then he spotted a small, distant fire burning a few dozen yards away outside. He was in a forest, but where? And how the hell had he ended up there? He felt so confused and dazed that he just couldn't think for the life of him.
David gently lifted his head and glanced down in front of him. He winced in pain as he gazed down at his upper body and saw, for the first time, the blood-stained bandages not only strapped around his shoulder, but wrapped around his waist too. So he had been shot there. He hadn't imagined it at all. He noticed that he wasn't wearing any clothes apart from a clean pair of black boxer shorts – underwear he didn't recognise as being his own. Where the hell were all his clothes? And who had taken them from his body and put on a new pair?
David winced again as he raised himself into a sitting position. He gritted his teeth to keep from roaring in agony as he struggled onto his feet. After taking a few deep breaths to gather his composure, he staggered outside the tent and into the tranquil open forest.
The smell of smoke and burning wood filled his nostrils. David took a long look around. He appeared to be in the middle of a huge campsite in some thick and forgotten forest. Dozens of ethnic refugees, young, old, men, women and children, were sitting around burning fires scattered across the forest floor. Some of the people were cooking, boiling soups and roasting dead animals. Some of the younger adults were having target practice with bows and sharp arrows, spears too, as they shot and threw their weapons of choice with a sharp and ferocious accuracy against some dead trees. They'd obviously been training for many, many months with nothing else to do with their time besides running and hiding from the new, extremist regime. Most of the older adults though sat talking around camp fires, laughing, telling stories and generally talking amongst themselves.
David turned his attention back towards the nearest campfire and the group of ethnic refugees who sat chatting away around it. On the other side of the fire, chatting quietly away with two girls her own age, sat Louise. She was the first of them who stopped what she was doing and stood to her feet as she spotted him. Immediately, the rest of the group all ceased from what they were doing and turned without words to stare at the half-naked, bruised, beaten and heavily bandaged man who had just emerged from the nearby tent.
“David. You're awake,” Louise cried out, a little hesitant at first but overjoyed to see him up and about. Some of the women over beside the other nearby fires quickly covered their children's eyes at the sight of David's almost-naked body.
Steve, the large black man from up on the hill, the leader of the rebel group, was the next to stand. He then calmly approached David with a beaming smile broadening across the length of his face.
“Hey there, my friend. My name is Steve.”
Steve offered his hand, but David didn't accept it or even move a muscle to acknowledge the man. Instead, he just eyed the large, cheery black man with a suspicious stare before finally asking. “Where the hell am I?”
Steve quickly glanced around the active campsite. “This is our home, my friend. This is where we live.”
“I meant...” David took a breath “...what part of the country?”
“We're a few miles northeast of Loch Lomond. Just on the other side of Ben Lomond.”
David pondered that thought. With the calculations he was now doing inside his head, he felt somewhat relieved and pleased at the answer. He'd still made a little ground even though he'd been unconscious for God only knew how long.
“What happened to me? My memory's a bit hazy. How did I end up here?”
“Please,” Steve replied. He then beckoned David to walk with him towards another series of tents. “Come with me, my friend. Let's find you some clothes to wear and some food to eat. Then we will talk.”
***
Wearing his old black trousers and t-shirt, along with a new, tight-fitting black jumper, David sat in front of a small burning fire. He was eating his second freshly cooked meal of roasted rabbit and vegetable soup as Steve looked on.
“So, you gonna tell me how long I've been here for?” David asked in between mouthfuls of rabbit and spoonfuls of soup.
“Nearly three weeks. You almost drowned out in the loch. You were unconscious for 17 days. You took a shot to your love handles.' Steve said with a chuckle. 'Luckily just a graze. And another shot to your shoulder. Another lucky flesh wound. Straight in and out. We cleaned up the wounds and stitched you back together while you lay in your comatose state. It's lucky we have so many good doctors here along with some bloody good medical supplies. You're lucky to be alive, my friend. We actually didn't think you would ever wake up after being underwater for so long. We managed to drag you both out of the loch only because we'd been following you ever since your escape from the bridge.”
David gave Steve a long, intense stare.
“I guess a big fucking thank you is in order, then ... Steve, right?”
“Yeah, that's right.”
David nodded before continuing to chew away on his roasted rabbit, using his bare hands to turn it this way and that.
“Two of our snipers saw you from the nearby hills down at the Erskine Bridge,” Steve continued. “And against orders, they gave you a little helping hand.”
David snorted at that but said nothing more. He barely remembered the bridge and everything that had happened upon it. Then crashing into the loch. It was all a big messy blur to him. He could hardly remember anything from those last few hours before the crash.
“I saw the aftermath of what you did back there on the bridge, though,” Steve went on. “That was the first time someone has ever atta
cked the British soldiers here. The very first time.”
David let out a cynical chuckle and shook his head. “I'm an ex-British soldier, mate. And I'll tell you this for nothing. Those narrow-minded, rancid, Nazi sacks of shit were no British soldiers. Firstly, none of them would be fit to wear the uniform and secondly ... well, I guess there is no Britain anymore. Not the way we knew it. So to me, they're just a bunch of Dumb-arse football hooligans waving guns around. ”
“Nonetheless, you fought them, David, and won. You took a hell of a lot of them out in the process. That hasn't happened here before. Nobody has fought back like that, especially this far north.”
“Well, it certainly wasn't intentional.' David casually replied. 'They just made the mistake of getting in my way, that's all.”
Steve just smiled and shook his head. It was a long time since he'd heard someone talking with such macho confidence. He would have chuckled out loud too if it had been anyone else, dismissing their bold confidence for stupid arrogance, but after hearing everything about David's exploits from Louise and seeing the aftermath of what he'd done back on the bridge, he knew that David was one of the few people left in this world who could severely back up anything he had to say with some heavy duty, kick arse action.
“But my snipers told me you had a chance to leave, without Louise. You could have simply driven away and left her there with those devil dogs to suffer for the rest of her short life ... but you didn't. You went back and saved her.”
David glanced over at Louise, who was still sitting around the same campfire from earlier, a few dozen yards away from him. She was still chatting away to the other girls, but he could tell she was taking little glances in his direction every now and again, just to see how he was doing.
He returned his gaze to Steve. “It was a moment of weakness. That's all. She should never have been on that damn bridge in the first place. That was my mistake for being too soft on her from the beginning and bringing her this far north.”
“I know you're a tough guy, David. I know you've been through a hell of a lot.” Steve hesitated as David glared at him with those, intense steely eyes. Steve knew he had to be careful about what he said next. “...Louise told us your story, along with her own. And that the only reason you're even here now is to find your girlfriend's killers.”
David chuckled at that, breaking the previous moment’s tension, which evaporated into the cool night air. He continued to eat his rabbit.
“But you've also helped some of our own along the way, she told us. And for that, we are all eternally grateful.”
“And I also left most of them to fend for themselves on the side of the road like a bunch of wounded animals, if you want to call that help. They are most likely dead by now or enslaved again and suffering even more for my interference.”
“Or they could all be alive and free. They could have found some pocket resistance groups like ours or formed their own communities deep in the forests and hills of the borders. Granted, they'd be living day to day, just as we do here, but they'd be free.”
“You are living in a fucking fantasy land, Steve,” David sneered. “Nothing and no one is free in this place anymore. Nothing! Do you understand me? Do you even understand what's happening out there?” David paused. He took a quick glance around at all the ethnic minorities going about their daily lives. “You call this free? Living wild like this. Living like scavengers in the woods. Being hunted down like rodents.”
David took a deep breath and set aside the rest of his half-eaten rabbit. He'd lost his appetite all of a sudden.
“Look, Steve. If it wasn't for Louise dragging at my heels like a lead weight ever since I fucking met her and badgering me to help every enslaved hobo we came across, the God’s honest truth is that I would have just kept walking every time I encountered one of those poor bastards. One of your people.”
“After everything Louise has told me about you, David, I find that very hard to believe. I understand you're upset. You nearly died, for Christ’s sake. You're tired. beaten down and angry. You've been unconscious for weeks. You want to blame someone and that someone is the closest person to you – Louise. I understand that.”
David grinned and shook his head again, like Steve wasn't understanding the bigger picture. “Well, it's the God’s honest truth, Steve. No matter how hard and how brutal it sounds. It's still the truth. And maybe you're right. Maybe she is the closest person to me in this go forsaken shitty world. But that's my mistake and it needs to be rectified. And it will be. As of right fucking now.”
“Look,” Steve replied. “I understand your rage, David. I understand that fury burning inside you for vengeance. But we need someone like you here. We really do. Stay with us, please. At least for a little while. Teach us how to fight back. Teach us how to survive. Teach us how to hit them and hurt them, right where it fucking hurts, just like they hurt us. Teach us how to beat them. Lead us if you must.”
“Lead you,” David scoffed. “Lead you to what exactly?”
“Lead us to a better life. Better than this, for Christ’s sake. Lead us out of here. Lead us to battle. Lead us to something ... just ... help us. Please, David.”
David turned away from Steve and focussed his stare upon a small squirrel that had been trying to climb a nearby tree. He remained deathly silent as he watched the little animal climbing now, all the way to the top. This Steve guy just didn't understand. Yes, David had been knocking on heaven's door for a few weeks, but he also took that as a warning. To buck up his ideas and put his own agenda first, ahead of anyone else's. More than anything, he felt that he'd been given a second chance now to get his justice. To get his revenge. To avenge Ashley.
“Look,” continued Steve. “I know you've lost someone very, very close to you. Hell, every single person in this camp has lost someone close to them and a dozen times over, too. My own wife and two daughters were raped and killed right in front of my eyes, by soldiers who just laughed and joked amongst themselves the whole fucking time ... and I couldn't do a single damn thing about it.”
David turned back to Steve with a hollow stare. “And what if you could do something about it, Steve? What if I could give you that information about where your family's killers are, right this fucking second? What would you do about it then?”
Steve sighed hard and shook his head. “Okay. Yeah ... if I knew where those bastards were right at this very moment in time, yes, you might be right. Perhaps I would be doing exactly the same thing you're about to do. I'd be hunting those fuckers down to the ends of the earth and gutting them from the inside out, slowly and painfully, just to make sure they felt a fraction of the pain my girls went through when they took away the most important things in my life.”
Steve took a deep breath. He let out another deep, hard sigh.
“But I also understand that I have a responsibility here, David. A responsibility as a leader and protector to other people, my people, here in these woods. So even if I did go off on some vendetta, when I was done with my vengeance, David ... I'd like to think I'd be able to come right on back to a place like this again. I'd like to think I could bring back some hope and meaning to my life and perhaps even do some good in a place like this. Even find some retribution and redemption, some forgiveness and peace ... some hope and meaning to my life again.”
“I'm sorry, Steve. But I'm done with this world and the people in it. I have only one objective left now. The only thing that's moving me forward. That's getting me up in the morning. That's keeping me alive. That's keeping my heart beating. And when I finally put that thing to bed ... trust me, I'll be no good to anyone anymore.”
David slowly glanced around the campsite again. He watched some children playing joyfully nearby. They looked so happy and carefree, even though horror and chaos were only a few forests and valleys away. He watched some of the younger adults still training with their bows and arrows and smiling and laughing and patting each other on the back whenever they hit their targets. For a m
oment he absolutely envied them. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been like that, smiled like that, laughed and played like that. And then suddenly he did remember ... every waking moment he'd spent with Ashley had felt and been like that. Even if he hadn't shown it as often as he would have liked from the outside.
Ashley had always been the smiling, happy, cheerful one. While he had always been the brooding, reserved, calm and composed one, choosing with care his moments to unleash his playful, fun and mischievous side. And now, watching those children play and those young adults train, his mind was suddenly made up more than ever.
He knew what he had to do. It was so clear to him. He had to find and end the lives of the people who had taken those feelings and memories away from him. He couldn't bear the thought of those same evil fuckers living their lives, being happy, having similar feelings and making similar memories with their own loved ones.
“Well, Steve,” David finally said as he stood slowly up onto his feet. “I will do you one act of goodwill for all the kindness and help you've shown me these past few weeks. If I see any more of your people out there on the road, then I'll know exactly where to send them now.”
Steve frowned. He knew from the look in David's eyes that nothing in this world was going to stop him from leaving this place or going back out into the world of chaos and destruction to seek out his justice and revenge. To do what he needed to do. And absolutely nothing would make him stop. Only death and only if death came for him first.
***
David crouched beside his tent. It was dark and he was organising his few remaining belongings before leaving the campsite for good. Steve had been kind enough to leave David a new rucksack with some bottles of fresh water along with a few days’ worth of food, including fresh fruit and vegetables. Steve had also placed a single handgun inside for him, along with a limited supply of ammo.
The Wrath of David Page 18