Chapter 49
Mina moved swiftly to the back of the barn and without talking to anyone curled up against the corner, as far back among the straw bales as she could. Leighton and Shannon moved over quickly to check on her. Warren had been moved over to sitting on one of the pews and Glen was giving him a check over.
“Are you okay?” Shannon asked.
Mina sniffed loudly and looked up at her. “I’m fine. I just got scared.”
“Sure of that? You look really shaken up.”
“I had some really strong painkillers. I just need some rest. I’ll be all right. We really need to get out of here.”
Mina sniffed loudly again and Shannon pushed Leighton a little way back to give her space. “I’ll have words with you in a minute,” she said sternly, pointing a finger in his face. She stroked Mina’s hair from her face and spoke softly. “What happened, darling? We’re here for you.” Mina breathed in deeply as if about to speak and then shut her mouth again. “You’re shaking.”
“I don’t know.” Mina shook her head. “The man with the blue beret. With the squiffy face.” She stopped. “He wouldn’t leave the bathroom. He really scared me. I somehow got past him, but was outside. I was grabbed. I lashed out. I don’t know.” She took a stuttering breath. “The soldier with grey hair. He stopped it.”
“Oh, oh, oh.” Shannon tried to soothe her. “Let’s give Mina a hug, Zeke.” She leant over Mina’s foetal body with Zeke. “I’m sorry, honey. It’ll be all right. We’ve got Leighton. He’ll get us both out. Not before I scold him for fighting, though.”
“Fighting?” Mina asked.
“He’s been really erratic the last few days. I was napping and when I woke up, he had put that young boy to the floor and I think cracked one of the big man’s ribs.” She chuckled and Mina joined her for a fleeting moment.
“Leighton? He seems so nice.”
“He is. He’s just out of sorts. Something happened to him on the way here. I – er.” Shannon’s throat caught and she coughed. “I think he may have killed someone.”
“Leighton!?” Mina asked incredulously.
“I don’t know. He’s been periodically weird since and won’t talk about it.”
“The world that’s been left for us here is messed up. Maybe I’ll wake up soon.”
Shannon hummed, pulled a frown and then leant her head upon Mina’s side. “We’ll get there.” Mina’s light sobs bounced Shannon’s head, and she rubbed the woman’s back softly.
Tariq wanted to run straight back to Grace and tell her what he had seen. Instead he continued to watch on. He couldn’t work out exactly what he had witnessed, but Mina had looked flustered and was clearly naked. He thought that the man that had grabbed her by her hair must have either intended to, or did abuse her, but perhaps she had just tried to run while she could shower. Although, to Tariq, that didn’t make much sense.
He saw one of the soldiers jogging around the complex for some time, but apart from that, very little happened. The patrols and movements of those people he could see seemed sporadic and he couldn’t put a routine on them at all. Eventually, hunger pangs got the better of Tariq and he returned to the cave.
“Grace,” he started. “I think I have seen her, but something happened.”
“Tariq, what?” Grace said urgently, hearing the tentativeness in his voice.
Tariq explained what he had seen and Grace listened intently with a look of distaste masking her face. He took sporadic bites of dry food as he explained and Grace waited patiently between mouthfuls. As he was explaining, he felt himself getting more and more wound up.
“I need to go in there soon. I think she has compromised her ability to escape with whatever has happened. Although she is probably safe now as those guys came in with guns raised to scare the others off her. -At least, that’s what I reckon.”
“Don’t be too rash, Tariq. It’s hard to comprehend and you still don’t know enough about them apart from the obvious. They have guns. You don’t.”
Tariq sighed and shook his head at the ground. “We have to do something. If I get an opportunity, I will take it now. Otherwise, tomorrow night I will go in.”
Grace said, “Rest now, then. Go back to see what it is like at night from dusk tonight. Try and work out an opening for yourself. You need to be a ninja.”
“I’ll need darker clothes. What do we have that’s black?”
Grace looked Tariq up and down taking in his light-coloured cycling jersey. “Well, you could try dirtying that up. Stain the colour out somehow. The other option is the black vest top that I am wearing. It won’t give you much warmth late at night, though.”
“I think I can forgo warmth for inconspicuousness.”
“Damn you journalists and your long words.”
Mina lay back, entranced by her slowly undulating visual disturbance caused by the Tramadol she had taken earlier. She patted her bra, contemplating taking more and stopped herself. Behind that veil-like disruption was the hole around a patch of blue sky. For a moment, the neurons in her brain aligned and formed an idea and she picked herself up to sitting. She caught eyes with Leighton and waved him over.
“Leighton, I have a plan.” His face picked up eagerly. He opened his mouth to speak. “Listen first. Before I lose the thoughts.” Leighton nodded. “I know where they keep the guns. In the farmhouse, downstairs, the room furthest from here. It looks like it used to be the utility room and I would assume that you can get in there from a rear door, though I don’t know for sure.”
“Well, that’s a great find-” Mina cut him off abruptly with a raised hand.
“I think that the hole up there you are slightly obsessed with-”
“Not obsessed.”
“Obsessed. If we stack these bails – they seem to move easily – you will be able to pull yourself through it. The corners of the building are concrete and stick out from the walls so you should be able to climb yourself down safely enough.” Leighton opened his mouth to explain why that might not work, but Mina continued anyway. “We can’t stop those guys from noticing, but if we do it a small build at a time we can at least hope that the soldiers won’t notice when they drop off our food and water.”
“You think they won’t notice?” Leighton asked.
“The ones that drop off the food are the ones that picked me up at my place. They are as thick as pig-shit.”
“You better be confident of that. How do we deal with the others? We have a peace treaty of sorts, but they are highly strung.”
“I heard. Well, I figure that if we escape, they escape. That fact should keep them on board and maybe even get them to help.”
“Should I talk to them about it?”
“No. Wait until they sleep tonight and we will start, get a few bales moved. I don’t trust them not to sell us out. They might have their own plan-”
Leighton interrupted, “Which might be damaged by ours. Telling the guards about us might give them privilege.”
“Leighton,” Mina said. “Try to spare the old man out there. If you can.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Mina gave him a concerned look. This plan of Mina’s involved a strong likelihood of more death. He moved away morosely and sat back down next to Shannon. Mina watched him. He gave her a thumb up before raising his hand to Shannon’s inquisitive look. “I need a few minutes to think, first. Then I’ll explain the plan.”
Chapter 50 – Day 13
Night had fallen along with the other inhabitants of the barn. All except for Leighton, the last one awake as usual. He lay waiting for the deep breathing and snores of those around him to reach a regular rhythm that would signal the start of his working time. He had made sure that Mina and Shannon had slept close together near the middle of the back wall to allow him access to either corner. He counted his pulse to sixty, fifteen times after he felt sure that everyone was asleep.
Quietly, he picked himself up and stretched out, staring up out through the hole to see a thin
sliver of a waning crescent moon. The only light in the barn was coming in through the cracks and breaks in the barn wall from the fluorescent lights surrounding the main house and tree that centred the complex. He trod carefully to the far side from the hole and felt around for the ties keeping the straw together on the first bale and eventually got both hands dug underneath.
The bales were cumbersome, but not too heavy for him. He carried it past his sleeping wife and placed it down carefully in the corner, starting off what would eventually become a steep set of stairs to freedom. He repeated the journey a dozen times leaving a rectangle of six bales packed two high on top of what was already underneath. He left the job for the night and curled up next to Shannon. It took time to fall asleep as his mind worked on imagining the final steps, though he would have to be flexible with it as they progressed.
Mina felt as though she had been waiting for Leighton to wake up for over an hour when the other group in the barn stared to rouse. She had specifically been waiting to chide him for starting work on the plan without her, but after that long wait the emotion had worn down to an arduous boredom and then into a state of anxiety as she thought about the soldiers both seeing what they had done and working out what it might mean, when they opened the far door to deliver breakfast.
“Morning, Mina,” came Shannon’s voice.
“Oh, hey,” Mina replied, pulling her gnawed fingers from her mouth and wiping them dry on her skirt. “Sleep well?”
“As well as can be hoped for on this itchy bed. He started without us,” she stated in an angry, but hushed voice.
“It looks that way.”
“I’m waking him. What if they see it at breakfast? Leighton,” Shannon called, rocking her husband to the waking world.
Leighton groaned and rolled over to face them. “What’s the matter?”
“That.” She pointed towards the corner.
“Don’t make it too bloody obvious.” He looked up to check on the other group. “We want to be as close as possible before they notice.”
Mina put a hand on Shannon’s back. “Leave it. If they notice at breakfast or not, they may well notice at lunch. Or dinner.”
“Alright, alright. Is it late or early?” Shannon asked. Leighton folded his arm under his head and rested onto it.
“I think it’s still early. I was awake just after the sun. I would guess it’s not far past six-thirty,” Mina replied. The door’s chain rattled. “Hold your breath.”
The door swung open and the light caused both women to squint into it. Mina recommenced chewing the ends of her fingers, watching for a sign in either of the men that something was wrong.
The door closed after what felt like an age to Mina and she let out an audible sigh, her shoulders dropping. Leighton presently picked himself up. “Let’s go. We have until lunch. If we build up another block of eight bales out this way and another eight on top, I think we’ll be good. If we go to high too quickly it’ll be more obvious.”
“Don’t you want breakfast first?” Shannon asked.
“Save me some, I want to get going.”
Mina said, “I’ll get the remaining breakfast. You wait here, Shannon.”
“Thanks, honey,” Shannon told her. By the time she looked around, Leighton was in the corner, pulling out another straw bale.
Mina turned around after picking up the remaining bread and water from the tray. She noticed that the three men from the group of farmers had stopped eating and turned around to watch Leighton. She drew level with them and one of them waved a hand as if to flag her down.
“What’s he doing?” Glen asked.
Mina shied her head away, but noticed him taking a step towards her. She thought quickly but couldn’t hold her voice from wavering as she lied. “He’s building a better bed for his son.”
The man regarded her and grunted thoughtfully.
Mina gave him a quizzical look.
Warren spoke up. “You just go back to playing maid. We don’t trust that one,” he said pointing at Leighton. “Things could get a lot worse for all of us in here if they think somethings up. We can make it much worse for you lot too if we think somethings up.” The man waved her on.
Mina hurried back to Shannon and placed the plate of bread and jug of water down in front of her. “They’re suspicious. Keep an eye out,” Mina told her. “Though it looks as though Leighton earned us our rightful share of breakfast.”
Tariq crept up to the brow of the hill to look over the farm complex. He had promised himself early on that he wouldn’t stay long. He just wanted to stay long enough to absorb the layout while it was daylight so when he went in after dark he would be able to find his way around.
He would go without a torch and stay until well after sunset so his eyes could adjust to the darkness. He would start his descent at the western most point that he could still see the farm from and that would take him down well into the treeline and protect him from showing up in the lights until he was almost at the outermost building, the one from his view that appeared as a silvery rectangle standing less than fifty meters or so from the last tree.
As he looked out he tried to picture how the lights would overlap, where he might find the darkest of paths over to the barn that would be on the other side of the complex. He had contemplated for a while approaching from the east, across the large, flat and open fields, but even under the cover of midnight and only a waning moon, he scared himself away from that idea with the thought of night vision goggles. They were soldiers after all.
After the commotion he had seen yesterday, when he had managed to catch sight of Mina, there seemed to be fewer of them wandering the complex. He supposed that they could have split into factions of some kind and the three he saw grabbing at his future rescuee might be refusing their duties. That thought was one that Tariq was happy to dwell on. Anything that would potentially make his attempt to free her easier was worth its weight in gold, balanced against his fragile confidence in his plan.
Back under the protection of the cave, Grace rationed out some of their food and talked at a silent Tariq who was as nestled back in the depths of his mind as he was at the back of the cave.
“I changed my top while you were up there,” Grace said, “When you get up, you can put it over your jersey.” She stopped as she took another bite of her carrot, crunching loudly. “I was thinking about the rest too. There was a small stream on the other side of the road that we left. You could get some mud from there and smear it across your arms and legs. I figure it will help you blend in. If you can get some leaves and twigs too and get them to stick while the mud dries, you’ll be almost as inconspicuous as one of the guys in the hairy sniper suits!” She waited for an acknowledgement and eventually received a grunt. Tariq had his arm across his eyes and sleeping bag pulled up to his nose. Grace continued crunching on the carrot. “I am sorry. I am a bit of a talker. Let’s let you get some sleep.”
“Sorry,” Tariq murmured almost unintelligibly. “The mud is a great idea. The ghillie suit sounds like a pain in the arse.”
“Ghillie suit?”
“The leaves and shit. It’s what snipers wear.”
“Oh.”
“I’m kind of stressing out. Not worth anyone’s time right now. Let me sleep, yeah?” Tariq raised a hand to try and flap away his agitated tone.
“Sorry,” Grace said, searching for something quieter to eat.
Chapter 51
Warren and Mark stood in close to the door in time for it opening at lunch. They stood near enough that Warren helped to swing the door wide. Leighton watched on. He was taking a break over the lunch time window and took the opportunity to give Zeke some attention and bounced him on his leg, though kept one eye on the farmers to try and work out what they might be doing.
Without warning, the younger soldier lunged forward and put the butt of his rifle swiftly into Warren’s stomach, dropping him to the ground with a retching sound. Mark picked him up easily and hurriedly moved backwards, cl
early stunned by the unforgiving suddenness of the motion.
“You. At the back. These guys here just lost you lunch,” the chubby soldier bellowed out. “-And fuck it. Dinner too.”
The younger picked up his head. “You should let ‘em know how you feel about that.”
At that, the door swung shut and was locked in place.
The three men, returned to their usual positions and Leighton called out, “Thank you.” He added a nod and a thumb up as they looked over.
A recovering Warren called over, “You, what?”
“I said, thank you.”
“That’s what I thought.” He started walking towards Leighton and Zeke was taken by his mother as he stood up in return, confidently. “You can keep the sarcasm to yourself, arsehole.” He stopped.
“I am not being sarcastic,” Leighton said across the distance.
Shannon whispered to him, “You’re not? Just settle down. Don’t lose your head again.”
Leighton looked down at her, shaking his head. “No. I won’t”
“Sorry,” Shannon said loudly “My husband always sounds sarcastic. I can never tell when he is serious.”
“Then if he’s serious, why is thanking us?”
“Leighton?”
“-Because that was hilarious.” Leighton bowed his head and raised his palms in front of him. “Sorry. That was me trying to be funny. I am not.”
“Stop playing stupid games before I come over there,” Mark said, standing just off Warren’s shoulder.
Leighton stepped down to reach a distance that wouldn’t require raising his voice. The two of them puffed their chests out. “I am saying thank you,” he said conspiratorially. “-Because you just won me the time I need to complete the first stage of my plan. Genuinely, thank you,” he said sincerely. He pushed his right hand out in front of him and neither man took it. “Like I said before, you guys go free too. Perhaps our two plans were divinely intended to intertwine and lead all of us in here to freedom. Assuming – that is – that whatever you did there was a plan.”
Ousted: A thrilling debut novel of survival and humanity Page 26