‘No,’ Albie said calmly. ‘I don’t think so, Tommy.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t want you to come with us.’
‘You need me!’
‘That’s possibly true. But I don’t want you. I don’t want you anywhere near me.’
‘Well we are going to the same place, Albie. Do you want me to walk twenty paces behind you? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I can’t stop you going where you want, or doing what you want.’ Albie broke away from Hector and moved in front of Tommy until their noses were almost touching. ‘It’s entirely possible that you have taken someone I love from me…’
‘I haven’t done any such thing! Didn’t you hear me…’
‘Shut your damn mouth and listen to me. Even if what you say is true, if that evil I saw in Mia has found my Sam, then you have denied me the chance to protect him.’
‘You can’t protect him from that.’
‘Then you have denied me the chance to say goodbye. Now, you better be listening to me right now, because I haven’t the energy to waste saying this again to you. Hear me and understand, Tommy, I’m not a violent person. I abhor what this country has become. What we have become. Maybe I’m an idealist, or maybe I’m just naïve, but the things I’ve seen this past day have shocked me to the core. Disgusted me. Frightened me. But you better damn well believe me when I say that, regardless of the person I’m trying hard to hold on to, if I ever see your face again, I’m liable to rip your throat out. I’m inclined to think I might actually enjoy it as well, Tommy. Goodbye.’
Albie rejoined Hector without another word. Callie, trying to hide her own limp, fell in on the other side of her brother, who wrapped an arm around the waist of both women, and guided them off into the night.
Tommy Bergan watched the dark eat them up, and then, when he could no longer hear their footsteps, let the tears come unabated.
Thunder broke again in the distance, rolling ever nearer, shouting ever louder, and threatening to tear the stifling night apart. Brilliant white flashes, like the popping of camera bulbs, announced its arrival, staccato light over calm sea, and turbulent land.
2
It was a foolhardy idea, all three of them knew it from the off, but none of them could bring themselves to admit the obvious to the others. Hector led the two wounded women around and about the darkened outlines of the vehicles dotting the road, occasionally stopping and investigating any likely rides. The pain in Callie’s ankle and the old wound in Albie’s leg made both women wince and groan from time to time but neither wanted to stop – or at least to be the one to stop the others – and both kept silent about their injuries. Sometimes Hector would make them stop on the side of the road, resting on a grass verge or leant up against a vehicle, and they would say nothing, merely stare ahead into the darkness before soundlessly moving out again, both women falling into Hector’s wearying embrace. They had been walking the road for an hour before Hector saw the light.
Off to their left, down a grass incline and through the trees, torchlight swept across the large window of a building in the distance, and then went out. Hector pulled them up and turned in that direction. Again the light came, once more sweeping the corners of the window before giving back to the gloom.
‘What’s down that way?’ Callie asked.
‘Service station most likely,’ her brother replied. ‘Garage, supermarket. What do you think?’
‘Let’s go,’ Albie said and started to move off.
Hector held her back. ‘Wait.’ As the two women rested up against an overturned car, Hector disappeared into the darkness. They heard car doors opening, things being discarded to the tarmac, a few choice swear words and then a small triumphant cry. A few minutes later and Hector returned wielding a steering wheel lock like it was a sword. ‘Right, let’s go.’
The incline fed down through the trees to a car park, and past more scattershot broken vehicles, the building loomed up at them, spreading wide on both sides. From this distance they could see it was a supermarket. The stench of rotten food was strong, even under the pervasive, smothering smell of petrol. To the far right of the supermarket, Hector could see the small alien shadows of petrol pumps, standing to attention on a forecourt.
‘I want you to go to the garage and see if you can find us a car,’ Hector said decisively. ‘You two okay to support each other?’
‘And where are you going?’ Callie asked, knowing the answer.
Hector pointed the steering wheel lock towards the supermarket. ‘Thought I’d get us some nibbles for the journey, what do you think?’
‘You can’t go in there alone,’ Callie said. ‘You don’t know who’s in there, how many are in there and what they are carrying.’ Callie looked down at the wheel lock. ‘I think we should keep moving.’
‘And how far do you think we are going to get? Seriously, look at us, sis. You two are banged up and I’m fit to drop. We need help.’
Callie laughed darkly. ‘And that’s what you think you are going to find in there? A concerned citizen, willing to help his fellow man?’
‘Gotta hope, right?’
‘Fool.’
‘Either there’s help in there, or someone that would kill us as soon as they see us, and if it’s the latter I’d rather meet them here where we’ve got some advantage than out there on the road. Besides which, friend or foe, they may well have a set of wheels. You’ve also got to hope there may still be something in there worth eating. I can’t get the taste of that gunk Jarrow was feeding us out my mouth. So, that’s where I’m at. You?’
Albie limped past them both, making a path straight for the rear of the supermarket.
Callie leant towards her brother and dropped her voice. ‘She thinks it’s him, doesn’t she? She thinks Sam’s in there?’
‘Pretty sure she wants to think that, yeah.’
‘What do you think?’
Hector shrugged and offered Callie his arm. ‘I think, I think she’s not ever going to see him again. That’s what I think. But I sure as shit aren’t going to tell her that. Come on.’
Past overflowing bins and the charred carcass of a large truck, two doors opened into the back of the supermarket. Hector, Callie and Albie approached against the wall. No one was surprised when a gust of wind caught the doors and slowly pushed them open. As Hector took the lead, steering lock drawn back as if he was about to receive a pitch, more thunder crashed in the distance, and the tightening air was suddenly flecked with light drops of rain. Moving around the yawning doors, two strip lights in the corridor ahead of them broke with intermittent white flashes as if the lightning in the sky had somehow got stuck inside. Beyond the teasing, token light, the darkness seemed impenetrable, the supermarket deathly quiet.
Hector led them in. ‘Keep close,’ he whispered.
They passed two offices and the doorway of a storeroom. The pungent pong of rotting food was sharper inside the corridor, and flies buzzed around the strip lights, circling their heads like broken black halos. The floor was damp, betraying the broken fridges and freezers, and empty cans and bottles marked their way into the main part of the supermarket. They had only taken a single step out of the corridor when the torchlight came again, this time sketching along an aisle to their right. Voices followed, two people, a man and a woman talking in fast indecipherable gabbles. Hector quickly dropped to a crouch behind a large, glass fronted cabinet and his free hand clawed at Callie behind him until she followed suit, her ankle injury making her lose her balance and fall clumsily into him. The steering lock, Hector’s mighty makeshift sword, tumbled out of his sweaty grasp and clanked along the floor, echoing through the quiet, shattering any hopes of surprise or subtlety.
‘Hello? Who’s there?’ It was the man, the fear in his voice all too evident.
‘I’m armed!’ Hector shouted back, scrabbling down on the floor to retrieve his weapon. ‘Don’t make another move. Who are you? What are you doing here?’
The silenc
e that greeted his warning seemed to last an age. Finally, the man piped up again: ‘what the hell you think I’m doing in a supermarket?’
‘Don’t try and be funny with me, I’m…I told you…I’m…’
‘For crying out loud.’ Walking out in front of Hector and Callie, Albie plucked up the steering lock and limped off towards the torchlight. ‘I’m walking towards you. My name’s Albie and I would rather talk to you than fight. Keep the torchlight on the aisle and then you can see me. If you have got a gun on you I would be grateful if you could hear me out before shooting me.’
Hector watched, mouth agape in stunned surprise, as Albie turned into the aisle and disappeared. A second later the torchlight was rising from the ground and Albie’s shadow was cast across the floor. ‘What do we do?’ Hector babbled.
Callie was slowly getting to her feet, using Hector’s back as support. ‘Well doing a runner is out for me right now, brother. I don’t see she’s left us much choice. Come on.’
‘Callie!’ Hector fumbled at his sister’s legs as she passed him, trying to pull her back, but only succeeded in falling flat on his face.
They were a short couple, shorter than all three of them, and they stood hand in hand in the middle of the aisle. The man held the torch up in a fist that was noticeably shaking, moving the beam from Albie, to Callie, to Hector, then to Hector’s hair, and then back again. A basket was hanging over the crook of the woman’s right arm, a few tins rolling and banging together. In the gloom it was impossible to tell their ages, but not, Hector was relieved to see, to notice how scared they clearly were. Hector was about to step forward and take charge of the situation when Albie beat him to it, the steering wheel lock now swinging idly by her side.
‘What are your names? I’m Albie and this is Callie and Hector.’
The Frost siblings gave the strangers half-hearted smiles. Hector raised a hand in a feeble wave.
‘We haven’t got much food. Just some tins past expiry. We’re not worth robbing. There’s nothing left in this place. Nothing.’ The woman spoke quietly and quickly, a speech she seemed to have been practicing.
‘We don’t want your food,’ Albie said, and then tried a smile of her own.
‘We saw the torchlight, that’s all,’ Hector said.
‘We were out on the main road, on our way to the coast,’ Callie chipped in.
The torchlight beam flicked between them again and then lingered on Albie. ‘Don’t I know you?’ the man asked. ‘You look familiar.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Albie replied and then took a step forward. ‘What do we call you? You know our names.’
‘Why do you need our names?’
‘Has The Party outlawed civility? Friendship?’
‘Quite probably.’ The man stepped forward, the torchlight working over Albie’s face, making her squint. ‘We are the Fletcher’s, of the southern quarter of City 17. Going to the coast. Getting the hell out of this madhouse.’
‘Storm Tail?’
‘What’s that?’
‘You’ve heard that there are people and ships that will get you out too?’ The man nodded slowly, the torchlight not leaving Albie’s face. ‘We heard there are ships at Storm Tail cove. That’s where we are going.’
‘You think it’s true?’ the woman asked.
Albie shrugged. ‘What’s the alternative to believing it’s true? I know the truth of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. That’s not something I want to believe in. We’ve been to City 17. We’ve seen what’s happened there.’
The man lowered the torch slowly and cut the beam. Drawing up in front of Albie, still not much more than a human shadow, he cautiously offered her his hand. One by one they shook it and then repeated the action with his wife. ‘You’ll be wanting a lift? I suppose that’s what all this polite dancing around has been for?’ The man stepped past them and plucked a couple of tins of soup from a shelf and then handed them back to his wife. ‘Yes?’
‘We would,’ Albie replied. ‘Thank you.’
‘Thanks,’ Hector and Callie repeated together.
The man moved away, his wife at his heels. ‘Very well then, you may come with us. Company should be nice.’ Highlighted by the flashing of the strip lights in the corridor, Hector saw they were much younger than he had suspected. Dressed smartly in a suit, Mr Fletcher was a squat man with a round face and neatly swept back black hair. Mrs Fletcher was dressed more casually in loose fitting jeans and a tatty jumper, her mousy hair hanging loose around her shoulders.
‘Are you going to tell us your names?’ Albie asked again as they walked back through the corridor and out into the car park.
‘Michael and Abigail,’ Mr Fletcher answered curtly as he came to a stop next to a battered old campervan, smeared from wheels to roof with filth, blending the once cream body into the colour of the night. ‘And we should get moving.’
One by one they silently climbed up into the campervan.
No one spoke for a long time. Until the sound of crashing waves carried to them through the open windows and the salty tang of the sea lightly sprinkled the thick, night air, they barely even made eye contact.
3
A roar of thunder brought her awake. She could feel rain tickling her face, a perverse lightness against the stifling suffocation of the night time air, and the stain of the nightmare she had been having about a man named Sullivan. She tilted her head back in the passenger seat of the jeep, opening her eyes to the rain and licking her dry, parched lips. Lightning flickered under the heavy grey smears of cloud that were trundling slowly towards them from the sea. She could taste the saltiness and thought she could hear the crashing waves. They were close. Mia moved her head back down again. Blarney was staring straight at her.
‘Hello. How long have I been asleep?’ It felt like several years to Mia. It wouldn’t have mattered to Blarney, she knew, her faithful dog would have stayed on her lap, legs sprawled out across her shoulders, for ever and a day if that was how long it would take to have her back with him. Dogs were perfect like that.
The jeep had stopped at the intersection of two streets. Half-standing houses threw their contorted, ugly shapes against the night, and all around them broken and burnt-out vehicles dotted the road. To their left, a large iron gate hung open, torn down from its hinges on one side. A wide metal sign on the wall, smothered in graffiti, suggested that a primary school had once lain beyond. To their right a house stood ransacked, stripped bare, relieved of its guttering, windowpanes, and its entire roof too. A human tornado had blown through this street, and left nothing for the rats.
Sam was slumped forward against the steering wheel of the jeep, breathing heavily. His arms dangled downwards, hands clenching from time to time against thin air. He whispered Albie’s name in his sleep and then shivered. The wound on his right arm was bleeding against the makeshift tourniquet he had made, the glistening smear like treacle in the night. Mia leant close and thought she could see more cuts and gashes on his neck and cheek. She took a hand to his sopping wet hair and stroked it gently, and then ran the hand down to the back of his shirt and slowly pulled him upright in the seat. His pale face glowed in the darkness. Like a ghost.
‘I’m so sorry, Sam,’ she whispered and then kissed him on the nose. ‘I am going to make it better, I promise, Sam. We are going to go to Storm Tail and we are going to find Albie and the others, and then I will make it right. All of it.’ She wanted to tell him more, and she nearly did, she nearly told him what she really meant by “making things right,” but she knew it would only be to try and justify it again to herself, as if speaking the words out loud would make the validity of her decision clearer. Or maybe it would make her realise just how stupid she was. Sam had never been to Bleeker Hill. He had never met Sullivan. He had no idea what went on there and why she had to go back. He wouldn’t understand that she had to know if he were still alive. That she had to save him. That she had to try.
‘Sometimes, Sam, you meet a person, or if you
are lucky, a few people, that change everything. For the better. People that love you, show you kindness, help you…save you. I’ve met a few. Now I need to be the same for them. I’m beginning to think that’s all you need to hold on to in this shitty country. It’s the only thing that makes sense any more.’ Mia leaned across and dabbed at the bandage on Sam’s arm and found it was soaked through. ‘I’m going to make it right, Sam. All of it.’
Searching the back of the jeep and then rifling through the glove compartment she came up empty in what she knew would be a fruitless search for a first aid kit. Moving the great ginger lump from her lap, Mia reached down and tore the bottom clean off her already ripped right trouser leg. Climbing out of the jeep she crossed behind the vehicle and approached Sam’s right side. Tentatively untying the bandage on Sam’s arm, Mia fashioned a new one from the torn part of her trousers and then slowly wrapped it around the wound, forming the two ends into a loose knot.
‘This is going to hurt, Sam…’ Mia started and then stopped, suddenly looking around her, convinced they were being watched. At the end of the drive of the gutted house a small crate was overturned on the pavement, a piece of cardboard wedged between its slats. Mia bent down and picked the cardboard free. Written on the card in thick pen was: APPLES STRAIGHT FROM OUR ORCHARD. PLEASE HELP YOURSELF.
Mia climbed back into the jeep and pushed Sam across to the passenger seat, forcing Blarney to jump into the back. Mia had the engine running before she returned her attention to the bandage, and as Sam’s screams cried out into the night a few seconds later, the jeep was already in motion.
4
They drove on. Houses and office blocks came and went. Battered rows of shops faded out – cafes, pubs, restaurants, B&B’s, and Mia entered every one that still stood, looking for a first aid kit, pills, potions or ointment, something to help Sam, and in doing so, help herself shed some of the guilt hanging over her shoulders. Each building was little more than a shell. She found nothing. On and on they drove until finally the buildings fell away completely on one side of them, replaced by an inky black sea. By the time Mia had turned the jeep through the entrance to the old seaside pier, and flattened the feeble wooden barrier that was politely asking people to keep away, the rain had come on strongly. It suggested relief, yet still the heavy sky would not break above them.
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