by Trevor Hoyle
“Would a fire do it, do you think?” Jen asked, hugging her knees and looking from Chase to her husband and back again.
“It might,” Chase said, racking his brains. “But it would have to be something that threatened Baz personally, his house, his drugs—” Nick thumped his palm. “Christ, Gav, that’s it! The dispensary! If that went up, they’d beat the flames out with their bare hands!”
“That would do it all right,” Chase agreed, “but we’d be hurting everyone else in the community, too, destroying drugs that innocent people need.” He tugged fretfully at his beard. “No, we can’t do that, Nick. It could cause their death.”
“It’s life or death for us, too,” Nick said. “Every man for himself.” Chase looked away, his face drawn and tight. “That’s why the world’s in a fucking awful mess right now. The biggest grab the most. What’s yours is mine and what’s mine’s me own. Old Lancashire saying.”
“I remember you and your bloody conscience at Hailey Bay,” Nick said, shaking his head wryly. “While the rest of us were wallowing in lurid sex fantasies, you were worrying about the dissolution of carbon dioxide in seawater. How about some coffee?” he said to Jen.
“Yes, all right. Do you want something to eat?”
“Not for me. Gav?”
Chase shook his head. Jen went through to the kitchen and Nick took a bottle and glasses from a cupboard. “Genuine and original Oregon brandy,” he said, pouring out four measures. “Made from apple cores and caribou droppings. This stuff puts hair on your chest and everywhere else as well.”
Jen returned and while they were drinking the coffee and brandy Chase told them about the marine trials. “Up to the time of leaving the Tomb they seemed to be going well. I’m hoping Frank Hanamura’s final report will be waiting for me when I get back.”
“What if the trials aren’t successful?” Jen asked.
“There are other methods we’ve been working on, but the problem with those is that it could take another twenty years to develop them sufficiently. Microorganisms with a high oxygen yield, seeding the deserts to make them net oxygen producers, and so on. But I’m not sure we’ve got twenty years—or even ten, the way things are going.”
“Not even ten?” Jen said numbly.
“There’s a negative feedback operating now, which means that adverse climatic conditions reinforce themselves to produce even more adverse conditions, and they in turn tighten the spiral. The climatic deterioration is happening a lot faster than anyone predicted. And there could be other factors we’ve overlooked or simply know nothing about, in which case we might already be too late to do anything about them.”
“Because you don’t know what they are?” Jen said.
“That’s right. Like a man backing away from a rattlesnake and walking deeper into a quicksand he doesn’t know is there. He’s going to die anyway, and not much consolation to know it won’t be by snake venom.”
Ruth and Jo came in and helped themselves to coffee. Chase felt uncomfortable in the girl’s presence, as if he bore some of the responsibility for what had happened to her. Rationally he knew this to be nonsense, and yet by association he felt that Dan’s act had somehow soiled him and made him party to the guilt. He searched Ruth’s face anxiously. “Is she all right?”
“I’ve given her another injection. It should ease her breathing, but it won’t help her overall condition. There’s nothing more I can do till we get her back to Desert Range. Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“I don’t know, have we?” Nick said to Chase.
Chase told them about Nick’s idea for setting fire to the dispensary, which he didn’t agree with, and Jo spoke up. “There’s no need for that. Baz and most of the others will be over at Tom Brannigan’s place watching blue movies on video. They do that every Friday night.”
“Is today Friday?” Chase said. He hadn’t the faintest notion. “They’ll leave two or three guys at the council hall,” Jo said, “but if you time it for about eleven, they’ll either be drugged or asleep or both. It’s the ones on the road we’ll have to watch out for.”
“Are they posted there all through the night?”
Jo nodded. “Since they set up a refugee camp near Alturas we’ve had to watch the road all the time. We’ve always had immigrants from the south, but these are crazies; they’d loot the settlement and wipe it off the map if we didn’t keep them out.” She added grudgingly, “I guess that’s one thing we have to be grateful to Baz for.”
Chase smiled at Jo, finding her an attractive and spirited girl. He liked her. “Well, let’s just hope Baz and his friends are too busy watching dirty movies and getting stoned to bother about us.” He said to Nick, “I’ll need to know a trail that will bring me back here, avoiding the road. You be ready to move by eleven. We’ll get Dan out, take the pickup, load it up with your stuff, and get out fast, roadblock or no roadblock. If they want a fight we’ll give them one. We’re leaving tonight. All of us.”
He stood up, his breathing tight in his chest. He hoped he looked more confident than he felt. “Right, let’s get organized.”
The lights of the settlement were a sparkling necklace of diamonds along the black oval curve of the lake. Beyond them the night rolled on into impenetrable forest darkness. Coming down the pale sandy trail, the sky ablaze with stars, Chase was struck by how vulnerable it looked. An attack by the “crazies” Jo had mentioned would leave the place desolate in a couple of hours. And if they found out that a bunch of youngsters was in charge—equally crazy in their own way—it would be an open invitation, too ripe and juicy to resist.
He and Nick had arranged to meet at the point where the trail dropped steeply through the trees, only a few hundred yards from the settlement. Nick was there, crouched with his back to a tree, the rifle balanced across his knees. He got up and without a word being exchanged they moved in single file down the last gentle slope, seeking the protection of the shadowy trees and bushes.
Chase had left the rifle with Ruth and carried the Browning. The night was warm and he was already perspiring from his three-mile hike. His stomach felt hollow with nervous anticipation.
As they approached the first lighted cabin Nick touched his arm and they skirted it, stealthily working their way around to the rear of the council hall. There was no sign of activity within; indeed, except for the cabin lights, the entire place might have been deserted.
Nick pointed out the vehicles parked in the back lot. There was a Dodge pickup that looked in reasonable shape. He leaned close and murmured in Chase’s ear, “We’ll check the roof first. The outhouse is at the far end.”
A jumble of packing crates made it easy to climb onto the lean-to roof. Stepping like cats, they moved along the roof searching with their outspread fingers against the rough timber wall of the main building.
Chase strangled an oath as he caught a splinter under his thumbnail. His throat stung. Dan was only yards away, the thickness of a timber wall separating them, and he had to fight an impulse to smash his fist through, infected with the mad idea that he could reach inside and pluck his son to freedom.
Nick’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and in the almost total darkness Chase saw that his bearded mouth was split in a grin. Chase strained to see and made out a small recessed hatch, at about knee height, fastened by a bent nail through a hasp. There was no padlock.
Nick put the nail in his pocket, opened the hasp, and pushed gently. The door resisted and Chase’s heart sank at the thought that it might be barred on the inside. Nick pushed harder and the door suddenly gave and flew back on its hinges. The two men held a collective breath at the expected crash, but none came. A faint creak of timber, a squeak of metal, that was all.
Crouching down, Chase followed Nick inside, feeling a bead of sweat rolling down between his buttocks. Inside it was black and stifling. He waited on all fours until the pencil beam of Nick’s flashlight pierced the blackness and flicked across the massive crossbeams supporting the roof
and settled on the floor of the loft. At once Nick found the trapdoor and he began edging his way along one of the rafters, flashlight in one hand, rifle in the other.
Waiting until he had safely made it, Chase followed, guided by the thin light. They knelt together, like fellow penitents, and listened. Chase counted the passage of time with the beats of his heart, and after several moments of absolute and unearthly silence, he took the Browning from his pocket and released the safety, then held the flashlight while Nick drew back the bolt on his rifle with infinite care.
No voices or sounds from below, so there was nothing to be gained by waiting. Nick pried his fingers around the edge of the trapdoor, and as soon as it began to move Chase switched the flashlight off.
An oblong of light appeared, the corner of a sink unit, a scuffed pine floor. The kitchen was empty.
Chase went first. Heaving himself through and hanging at arm’s length, he dropped lightly to the floor, which gave a slight groan under his weight. He took the rifle while Nick climbed down. The kitchen was tiny, narrow, with a fluorescent light that buzzed like a fly trapped in a jam jar. Chase pointed to a Formica-topped table alongside the wall, and at Nick’s understanding nod they lifted it together and positioned it under the trapdoor: their quick escape route. Chase was even beginning to hope that Dan’s disappearance wouldn’t be discovered till morning, by which time they’d be miles away—even if they had to shoot everyone in that road patrol, he thought with grim resolution.
Chase hefted the automatic and mouthed Where? to Nick, who jerked his thumb, indicating the room along the passage to the left. Pressing close to the wall, Chase eased the door open a crack, saw that it was clear, and sidled out into the passage, the gun held near his chest. As Nick followed, the floorboards creaked under their combined weight. Chase could feel his shirt clinging to him like a second skin, and when he stole a glance over his shoulder saw that Nick’s face, like his own, was running with sweat.
The door of the stock room was at the end of the passage. Opposite were a pair of double doors that led presumably into the main body of the hall. Was that where Baz had posted his guards? He couldn’t hear voices, music, anything; but that didn’t mean there was no one there. He and Nick were going to have to be as quiet as church mice.
There was a heavy padlock on the stock room door, recently fitted judging by the film of grease still on it. That made things very awkward. They couldn’t break the padlock without making enough noise to wake the dead ... and then his eye fell on something and he grinned exultantly. Next to the door, on a nail, hung a key.
Chase fitted the key, which turned easily, and the padlock sprang open. He removed the padlock and placed it on the floor and turned the handle with a firm, steady pressure, Nick’s breathing audible in his right ear as he pushed the door open and took a step into the room.
He sensed at once that something was wrong. They had made a dreadful mistake.
Even as he took in the bound-and-gagged figure in the chair, the eyes wide with fear and warning, even as he knew what those eyes were signaling—all this passing through his mind in an instant—Chase was still too late and too slow to prevent three pairs of hands clamping him simultaneously on his hand, arm, and shoulder while behind he heard the rattle of the double doors and Nick’s gasp of shock as the rifle was wrenched from his grasp.
Baz stood there grinning. “Didn’t I tell you?” he boasted to the others. “Had to be.” It was his moment of triumph and he was luxuriating in it.
He took a long hunting knife from its sheath, went behind the chair, and sliced through the ropes. Dan sagged forward and clawed the gag from his mouth, sucking in air. He looked old. The bones of his face showed pale through his skin. His lips were bloodless and his eyes were black circles. The flesh hung wrinkled on his elbows.
“Oh, my God,” Nick said. “You bloody bastards.”
Chase couldn’t speak. An icy paralysis held him rigid, an iciness that burned with the most intense and consuming anger he had ever known.
“It’s okay, he’s alive,” Baz said blandly. He held the knife upright, touching the point with successive fingertips. “We could have let him die or killed him. We decided not to.”
He looked at Chase, thick fair eyebrows raised as if seeking commendation for this act of mercy. His eyes were a bright dreamless blue. He might have been drugged, mad, or both; it was impossible to say.
Chase pulled himself free and knelt in front of his son. He tried to speak and couldn’t. He wanted to say that it was all his fault, his stupidity, that he was to blame for what had happened to his son and Cheryl. He shook his head dumbly, holding Dan’s arms like a baby’s, as if afraid they might break.
“I was coming to see you at Desert Range, Dad. I wanted you to help us—help me—but they wouldn’t let me. I’m sorry for what I did, I—” Dan choked up. His eyes were moist and red-rimmed. “I can’t tell you how ashamed I feel. I loved her, Dad. I loved her and yet I did that to her.” He hung his head and his shoulders started to heave.
Chase released him and stood up. He turned slowly and looked in turn at each of the seven young men and finally at Baz. He said, “That’s why you couldn’t let him go, isn’t it? It would have ruined your chances of becoming tin-pot dictator here, you and your”—he made an empty, dismissive gesture—“bunch of crazy thugs. Do you know you’re insane, Baz?” He glanced around at them. “You’re all stark bloody raving mad, did you know that? You’ve pumped yourselves full of poison and your brain cells have corroded. And you talk about survival of the fittest.” Chase shook his head pityingly. “You’re a dead man, Baz. All of you are as good as dead. Nothing can save you now.”
Baz thrust the point of the blade at Chase’s throat. The arteries on his forearm stood out, lumpy and blue, the skin hard and shiny where repeated punctures had formed scar tissue.
“You’re fucking dead, Chase, not us!” He rocked forward and Chase felt the tip penetrate his skin. It felt like a red-hot needle. “All I have to do is keep on pushing,” Baz said, “and pushing and pushing and we all stand around and watch you bleed to death like a stuck pig. I told you already to get out. That was your one and only chance. But I knew you’d be too dumb to take it.”
Nick said, “We’re going, we’re getting out, all of us. If we go we’re out of your way, which is what you want, isn’t it? Why keep Dan here or any of us?”
“I don’t want you,” Baz said, easing back and pointing the knife at Dan. “I want him. He wants to kill me, don’t you, Danny boy? The bastard tried it once.” He yanked out his shirt to expose a white bubbled scar across his stomach and pelvic bone. “And nearly fucking did it.”
“Don’t give me another chance, Baz,” Dan said, his voice hoarse and low. “Next time I will do it.”
“That’s why you’re not going anywhere!” Baz shouted, his eyes glazed blue. “Not any of you!” He blinked and wiped his mouth, as if coming out of a trance, and pushed a hand through his disheveled hair. Then he abruptly grabbed Chase by the shoulder and heaved him violently across the room.
Nick went for him as he strode to the door and actually got a handful of Baz’s shirt before three of the others pounced on him and dragged him away. One of them swung a rifle butt at Nick’s head and there was a dull solid sound like the distant boom of a cannon and Nick fell to his knees.
Baz kicked at him viciously. “Stay here and fucking rot! ” He glared at Chase and Dan, chest heaving. “You’re here and you stay here. Cheryl and that other woman have gone and they’re never coming back, understand? They can take their chances on the road.” Suddenly his grin came on, as if somebody had pulled a string. “We’ll let your wife and daughter stay,” he told Nick. “Now that Jo’s been raped I bet she’s got a taste for it.” He sprayed his mad grin around at the others. “One at a time or all together, huh?”
Nick struggled to rise, his eyes hooded with pain. “You go anywhere near my family and I swear I’ll swing for you. I’ll get you. I’ll get you.�
� He stumbled forward, arms outstretched. “You fucking miserable excuse for a human being.... Aaaaaggghhh!”
Baz had lashed at him with the knife and there was bright blood everywhere, pumping from a deep gash in Nick’s shoulder. The front of his shirt rapidly changed color to a dark plum and hung slackly to his chest.
“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do?” Baz taunted him, waving the dripping knife blade in a circle. “Bleed to death? Yeah, great, I like it. Go on, bleed, you cunt.” He continued to grin, spots of blood on his forehead and cheeks.
Chase supported Nick and helped him to a chair. He bound the wound with his handkerchief and knotted it tightly to stanch the flow. It was pointless trying to reason with Baz because there was no reason left. His was a mind on a one-way track, fixated, a mind that needed only the flimsiest excuse to slaughter them on the spot.
If there was a way out of this he couldn’t think of one. It wasn’t only the three of them here who were in danger, but the women too. Jen and Jo at the mercy of this drug-crazed mob, Ruth and Cheryl out there in the darkness on a lonely road ...
He raised his eyes to where Baz was standing with the others bunched around him, each of them with a fragment of a common expression like a splintered mirror showing a single demented face. And as he looked something locked in Chase’s throat. Under his hand he felt Nick’s body stiffen. The double doors across the passage had silently opened and they watched a man come through with a double-bladed ax lifted high above his head and bring it down with maniacal force on the crown of Baz’s head, splitting it into halves.
The scene turned red. Through the sticky fountain Chase saw other men pawing their way forward clutching knives, hatchets, steel bars, hacksaw blades, scythes and cutting and slashing indiscriminately at whatever was in their path. They were filthy, with matted hair and beards, their clothing stained and ragged. Some were putrefying, their faces and arms covered in scabs, others totally bald with skin a drab pasty white. All of them were demonical and possessed with blood-lust.