Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3)

by Martyn J. Pass

  At some point during all the talk and chatter, Alan turned and found her in the crowd, smiling as their eyes met, sending ripples of delight through her body. This was truly the Medved, the Bear the Russian had spoken of with such pride, such fiery hope that she felt her chest swell with the same admiration for a simple, honest man who'd had the fear of death taken from him and replaced with the burning desire to see the best in people.

  Her only worry was the cost to herself and would she be willing to pay it when the time came.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When the plans were finalized and the people set to work, Alan told them that they were leaving and they all wished them both well. Sarah had already climbed into the saddle of Ziggy and Moll ran circles around her master until he climbed the box and mounted his horse.

  “Are we ready?” he asked her.

  “Not really,” she laughed. “But we've gotten this far, haven't we?”

  “That's true enough.”

  The crowd parted and escorted them all the way back to the road, trying to snatch a little more of them before they left. It was clear they wanted them to stay and help but they had no choice; their road lay ahead, to Hope and to a solution that would be more long term than just holding back the coming tide. Whatever their plan might be, it couldn't be carried out there in amongst the fragile homes of a troubled community.

  As they settled into the journey again, Sarah looked at the bleak landscape and let out a sigh.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “I don't want to be defined by who you are,” she said without any kind of malice. “I'm me, I'm a person and although I'm with you one hundred percent, you need to know that I'm not like your rifle or that blade or even the horse. I'm with you, but I'm not some tool to help you get the job done.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I understand.”

  “But I am your partner,” she grinned. “We're a team. I just don't want to vanish behind you like some spectator in the crowd, losing my own self in the shadow of yours.”

  “Where's this coming from?”

  “I want to be honest with you every step of the way,” she said, trying to find the right words to make sure she was listened to as well as just being heard. “It was something I realised when you were helping those people. It's so easy to just slip into the background, to be the 'somebody' no one sees anymore.”

  “Have you felt like that before?” he asked.

  “Meggy's father had that effect on me. When we first fell in love I was everything to him. He worshipped me and made me feel like I was the most important thing in the world to him. I guess that's what young love is like. But when Meggy came along it was like I'd done my job, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “And suddenly it was all about Meggy and her needs and I'd done my bit so there wasn't much point in treating me like I was everything to him because I realised that I wasn't anymore. That sounds horrible, doesn't it?”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “I was okay with it at the start. Maybe we both felt left out because we loved Meggy more than we loved each other. We had a beautiful daughter and she needed both of us regardless.

  “But then she died and the glue that held us together was gone. He left too and got himself killed fighting Scavengers. I felt like the whole thing was just crashing down around my ears. There were times I thought I'd done something wrong, like I was being punished for something I'd done and I just couldn't make sense of it all.”

  “I think I'd have struggled too,” he said.

  “But do you see what I mean?” she pleaded.

  “I think so,” he replied. “You were defined by your father, then Meggy's father and even, perhaps, by Meggy herself. When it all came to an end, you didn't know who you were anymore. The things that defined you had gone.”

  “Exactly! And as the years went by I began to wonder if there was actually a 'Sarah' who wasn't any of those things anymore, if there was a person waiting to see who she was under all that.”

  “And was there?” She shrugged.

  “I'm still not sure.”

  They rode along, ambling for most of the way as the road banked gradually off towards the north where an angry bruised sky threatened to vent itself on them before the evening came. Moll was happy to race on ahead and sniff out the wrecks of cars or crumbling ruins that by now were almost unrecognizable.

  “There was a time when I thought that this ability of mine defined me,” he said. “When I came out of that underground laboratory into the daylight, knowing that I couldn't be killed and that I might live longer than most, I thought that that was who I was, like wearing a mask I couldn't take off anymore. I put myself under so much pressure to get involved with helping people back onto their feet that I wondered if I was lost in it all, like I was drowning or something.

  “But then someone warned me once that I couldn't save the entire world, that I'd have to accept that I was limited, that people would still die, that the bad guys would win from time to time and that if I just stayed the course I might be able to make a contribution rather than a difference.”

  “And?”

  “And I did. People survived. It wasn't the end.”

  “But it wasn't enough,” she said. “It was still who you were.”

  “That's right. I was seeing myself through the lens of being the hero and when I wasn't, when people despised me and drove me out of their settlements, I didn't know who I was anymore. Was I the hero? Or had I become the villain?”

  “What changed?”

  “I guess I did. One day I was living on the coast in this little fishing village that someone had told me about. They'd got a nice quaint settlement together and I was doing a little work here and there; odd jobs, that sort of thing. I was on the beach early one morning and I saw this kid waving his arms, calling out for help. Straight away I threw off my clothes and went in after him. I'm not the best kind of swimmer but I knew that drowning wasn't a problem for me-”

  “That's quite handy.”

  “It was. I'd done a lot of thrashing in the water before I realised I just wasn't getting any closer. I started to panic, to feel a real sense of guilt and powerlessness to save this kid when all of a sudden I saw something fly past me. It was going fast, thrashing the waves as it went. It reached the kid and got an arm around him just as he was going under and began swimming back with him.

  “I followed, relieved of course, and I saw that it was this sixty year-old man, buck naked, dragging the kid onto the sand and pounding the water out of his stomach. He was a sailor; I'd seen him drinking in one of the houses and he had form, he had skill and he was the right man for the job.”

  “So you realised that the pressure wasn't on you as much as you thought it was?” He nodded.

  “I didn't need to save that kid because the old man was the right guy for the job. Maybe I'd played a part, maybe I'd given the warning early enough for him to hear, but the message was clear; I didn't have to help, I could choose not to, I could choose to help someone else so that they in turn could help others. People would rise to the occasion without me; I was no longer this superhuman being I'd made myself out to be. I could be me. The real me.”

  “And here we both are,” she smiled. “Figuring it out for ourselves.”

  “Isn't that always the way?” he asked. “But do you know something?”

  “What?”

  “I think that before we're finished, we're going to end up defining each other whether we like it or not.”

  Night fell and with it so did the promised rain. It came softly at first as if feeling a little sympathy for the riders and was offering them a warning of what was about to come. Then, when they'd found a large enough storm drain protruding from a wooded hillside, it finally let go and emptied the heavens in one continuous, violent downpour. It beat down upon the collapsed buildings at the bottom of the slope with such force that one finally gave in and with a great crash, tumbled to the ground, kicki
ng up dust and fumes as it went.

  “I reckon that one was waiting for us,” said Sarah from the shelter of the overhanging concrete pipe. “It wanted a witness to its final fall.”

  “Well it certainly got two,” he replied, stoking the fire. “I used to come across it all the time a few years after I left Longsteel. You'd see a leg or an arm sticking out from under the rubble where some bright spark had taken refuge inside one. It looks safe from the outside but you can't see what's going on in the foundations or inside the cavities. Without people maintaining them, most houses start to collapse after a number of years. All those north of London I guess.”

  “Why north of London?” she asked.

  “That city will be around for centuries,” he laughed. “They replaced stone with this indestructible stuff and reinforced the ones they couldn't take apart. Plastic Village most people called it way-back-when.”

  “Why aren't people there now?”

  “They might be,” he replied. “But it's the obvious hideaway for all kinds of scum and the last person I heard who'd been there said that the sewers had flooded. If the Scavs don't kill you then the diseases will. Better to stay away from the really big cities for now.”

  The fire had warmed the pipe pretty quickly; the heat had nowhere to go given the cave-in much further down that had reduced the flow of rainwater to a trickle that ran down the centre. At first he'd been worried about the rain, wondering if the blockage would suddenly burst open during the night. But when he examined the hill above and saw the extent of the collapse, he told her it would be fine.

  The horses were tied to the most sheltered spots in the narrow belt of woodland where patches of weeds and grass grew up towards the spots of sunlight that managed to penetrate the overhanging branches. There was no room for them in the pipe but they didn't seem to mind the rain once they'd made good progress on clipping the ground short with their teeth. Moll on the other hand had found a nice spot between the fire and the far wall, laying out on her belly, staring into the night.

  “You said that Meggy's father died fighting the Scavs,” said Alan, sitting down next to her once he seemed satisfied that there were enough branches inside to fuel the fire for the rest of the night. “How did it happen?”

  She rested her head against his shoulder and let out a sigh. She could still see his body being brought back on a stretcher made from thick pine branches. A military surplus blanket covering his face down to his knees because it hadn't been long enough to cover his entire body. The faces of the people carrying him. The others behind them.

  “I'm not sure you could call them Scavs I guess,” she said. “Now that I really know what that word means. They were people who'd heard about Abbingdon and wanted to scare the settlers away. Back then we were just starting out to settle in Pine Lodge. We'd been in our house for a few years and it was Papa who'd suggested occupying the farmland around that area on a more permanent basis. A council of sorts was put together and things started to happen.

  “One day a young family was murdered whilst rebuilding a dairy farm to the southwest of Abbingdon. A call went out for a handful of people to volunteer to hunt down the culprits. Mostly they were older, more experienced men and women who had nothing to lose. Families lost in the disaster, orphans, single men or lonely women. They had plenty of volunteers but for some reason Mark felt it was his duty to join them.”

  “And they let him? This council?”

  “I don't think he left them much choice. The last thing I can remember of him before he set out on our best horse was this kind of resigned smile he wore, like he knew he was going to die. I sometimes wonder if that's why he did it. Maybe he wanted to die out there, being a hero rather than live with the memory of the daughter he lost.

  “The horse was called Jepetto. He was a beautiful Palomino and he was one of our best studs. Not only did we lose Mark but we nearly lost the business too, our only means of trading with the settlements. Life got so much harder after his death and I don't think he realised the effect it would have on us. I got lazy. I stopped working our little vegetable patch and the pressure fell on Papa to keep it all going. Obviously, it was too much; I see that now.

  “A few days later and we got word that they were bringing back the dead and there he was. They'd made such a-”

  Sarah held it in, biting down hard on her lip with a determination not to cry again. Alan's arm moved around her shoulders and that was where the conversation ended.

  The rain continued to fall and they watched it from their ancient cave, seeing the ghosts moving around the ruins below. They were shopping and walking and working without a care in the world. Cars set off and cars parked. News was streamed to phones and computers and people lived and died down there. If she looked closely enough she could see herself, pushing a baby carriage with Meggy and Mark in another world, another time. The one that she'd missed. The one that she would never live now and, perhaps, the one she no longer wanted to.

  They were still a good few miles from Hope when they heard the first reports of gunfire off in the distance. To Sarah it sounded like the popping of corks or the noise that a thunderstorm makes somewhere miles away but which carries on the wind. It brought them up short and they both dropped their hoods to hear better.

  “It's happening that way,” he said, pointing off across the open fields. “A skirmish of some kind.”

  “It's not Hope. It's coming from the wrong direction.”

  “Another settlement maybe. It's too intense to be an ambush.”

  “There's only one way to find out,” she said.

  They spurred the horses on, reaching the top of a hill that looked down on the conflict. Below them the battle raged over a building situated on a riverbank which was being assaulted by a number of Slavers all wearing the stained red leather. They were trying to cross a stretch of cleared ground, no doubt made that way intentionally by those defending the place. They were positioned on the roof and just outside the front door behind makeshift dugouts. The conflict seemed like a stalemate. The Slavers couldn't cross the dead zone without being cut down and the ones defending their position had no line of escape. The river was rushing by at such a speed that jumping into it would almost certainly mean death.

  The crackle of gunfire and the boom of the occasional explosive echoed across the open ground and reached them both. Sarah took out her monocular and scanned the battle.

  “They're holding on but for how much longer, I don't know,” she said. “There's a good chance that they're people from Hope. The building must be important to them.”

  “I'd guess it has something to do with clean water,” said Alan as she handed him the monocular. “It might be pumping it to the settlement. Those fortifications aren't new - they were built some time ago. They're weathered. What do you think?”

  “You're asking me?”

  “Yes. Why not?”

  “This is usually your kind of thing. What good is my opinion?”

  “You said that Plan A doesn't always have to be kill first, ask questions later. So?”

  “They were different circumstances. I was angry.”

  “The point is still a good one. My instinct is to head down there and kill the Slavers. We know who they are and we've got a good reason to believe they're attacking innocent people. But what do you think?”

  “I'm inclined to agree. I think I'll take a spot up on that hill and try to pick a few off. What about you?”

  “I'll get a little closer,” he grinned. “It's easier that way.”

  “If you say so. Be safe,” she said, turning Ziggy away.

  “You too.”

  “And thanks. For asking, I mean.”

  Sarah galloped across the crest of the hill which dropped to a wide ridge as it arced towards the riverbank. When she was a fair way up from the vantage point, she leapt from the horse and tethered him to a tree, taking her rifle and spare ammunition from her tack. Then, staying low, she moved swiftly towards the spot and set up her f
iring position, trying to recall those days in the woods with her Papa when she'd first fired a rifle. The key, she remembered, was to slow everything down and not get caught up in the panic of the moment. No matter what she saw below she had to follow the same steps, the same ritual as he'd called it.

  In spite of the clamour and the racket from below, she was ready to fire pretty quickly and she began to take a bead on the nearest Slaver. Already three had died from his accurate aim since she'd first moved into position and as she took up the pressure on the trigger she willed the round to pass through his skull and end the carnage.

  She glanced towards where Alan was supposed to attack and saw him. He'd left behind his gear and kept only his saddle, even throwing off his coat and anything else that might hinder him as he thundered along on his mount. He had his blade in his right hand, tied securely to his wrist and as he neared to them, Moll overtook him; her ears flat to her skull and her teeth glowing in the fire of the setting sun. They hit the rear of the attackers hard and hacked straight through them, killing one and almost taking the arm of another clean-off. Then Alan stopped and concentrated his attacks, felling one after another while Moll tore out the throats of her victims, splattering her soft, downy fur with gore.

  Sarah fired. The round passed clean though the shoulder of the man which was enough to put him on the ground, where he was soon trampled to death by those fleeing from the surprise attack at their rear. She took aim at another, killed her with a single shot and then moved onto the next. In this calculated way, Sarah was able to decimate the flank of the attackers and by the time the battle ended she estimated that she'd fired thirty-four times and missed only twice.