The two men stood still, maintaining a stone-like eye contact with Leighton. “Whatever you just said, I still think you’re going to get us all killed. I haven’t yet decided whether to dob you in to the guards. Think really hard about what you’re doing.” Mark gave him a stern nod.
“I will.” Leighton smiled and turned his back on the men whom he could still feel at his back, unmoved.
Leighton, knowing the guards would not be disturbing him until the next morning, boldly ignored the farmer’s warning and worked as hard as he could throughout the day. Shannon and Mina took shifts helping, but Leighton was fervorous and even between the two of them, they couldn’t equal his rate of movement. Sweat covered him from head to toe by the time dinner would have been due and he finally took a break, just in case they were to suddenly turn back on their plan or simply swing the door open for a look.
All three of them were parched from the lack of water. Leighton kept them going, telling them that it was only for a few more hours until death or freedom – he focussed on the freedom – would present itself to them all. While they all rested, Leighton sat half way up the quarter pyramid of straw that now pushed into the walls. Only a dozen or so bales not part of the pyramid steps remained and Leighton’s thighs ached at the mere thought of hauling them up the considerable structure.
Luckily, the farmers were still debating their warning. They hadn’t shouted out to the soldiers as they heard footsteps. Perhaps they had decided that even if Leighton died – assumedly quite quickly – to the rifles, they would not be impacted. Leighton occasionally nodded politely to them as they looked in his direction, but still held an anxious distrust. He dropped down to the ground and walked as if to use the bucket. He stood above it. but had sweated out most of the moisture he had and feigned going, whistling loudly as he pretended to wee with his back turned to the farmers. He checked the other group again as he walked back along the opposite edge of the barn. Without looking he flung his right arm up and managed to grasp hold of two rusty tools from the rack that was screwed to the wall. Looking from under a bowed head, he could see that they had either not seen or not cared what he was doing. ‘Perfect,’ he thought. He shoved the two implements in his right pocket and continued back to the straw.
Tariq had slept fitfully through the day. Most of the time had been spent repeating a mantra of ‘rest is as good as sleep’ in his inner voice. Whilst awake, he ignored Grace – who never seemed to have moved – and simply focussed on himself and getting back to sleep again. It eventually became apparent that the sun was nearly finished traversing the sky, indicated by the deep orange glow on faint haze that hung in the air.
He donned Grace’s vest top, covering most of the brightest parts of his jersey and wandered down the slope to the main road. After smearing copious amounts of mud all over his body he walked back up. Only the top half of the sun was visible at the horizon and the unnatural orange light deepened, fading into dark blue in the eastern portion of the sky where the waning crescent moon was haloed through the haze.
“How do I look?” Tariq asked.
“Who said that?” Grace joked. “Positively invisible. You should definitely wear more tank tops and fake tan. You should have done more on your head, though. They’ll see the moonlight reflecting off your bonce from miles away.”
“At least you’re in good spirits,” Tariq grumbled. “The way I see it now, it’s to a flip of a coin. Given how many of them are down there, perhaps I need it to come down on its edge to end up on top.”
“Come here.” Grace picked up a handful of soil and with her other hand pulled Tariq’s head down to her level. “This should matte you up a little more,” she said, vigorously applying the soil to his bald head. “That’s better. Takes the shine right off.” She laughed.
Tariq let out a deep breath and loosened shoulders that had been held taught for around two weeks. “Okay,” he said. Then in his cheeriest attempt at a British accent, “Shan’t be long, dear.”
Grace copied the accent, “I will have a pot of freshly boiled tea ready upon your return.”
Tariq walked off parallel to the road, watching the sun slowly disappear. He was always one to be early. It would be a while before it would be dark enough to make his move, but as with meetings of any kind in his previous way of life, he would rather be in position and then wait than feel like he was losing time sitting around at home. He normally had his phone and plenty of media to keep him entertained. This time he would simply be waiting with his own thoughts for the next few hours on the unseen side of the ridge. With that thought, he dragged his steps. He had no need to rush. The darker the better.
He took up in his first position with his binoculars. The complex looked different from this new angle and it took him a little while to get all the buildings in the right place in the map of it he kept in his mind. He worried for a moment that when he got into the complex it would look so different again that all his planning would be wasted. If that was the case, it would be too late to do anything about it. He recalled a phrase from his English lessons back in Egypt. It was inside the cover of one of his mum’s favourite books. ‘The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft awry’. He figured it was probably from something else originally, but it was the book by John Steinbeck that stuck it in his mind.
He climbed away from the edge and laid on his back, watching the sky turn darker blue. Stars started to become visible and the moon crept further into his vision. It was there that he waited for complete darkness to envelop the land.
The finished structure within the barn still left Leighton with quite a stretch to the lip of the hole, but it was secure and certainly the most stable part of the plan that they had. Leighton ushered the two women and Zeke to a point about a third of the way up and against the furthest wall from the farmer’s group.
“Before we pretend to sleep, I have a temporary parting gift for you both,” Leighton whispered. Shannon gave him a confused look. “Shannon, to you-” he started.
“Damn, do you have to make it so formal?” Shannon interjected.
The three of them laughed.
“Okay, okay, shush,” Leighton said. “Hold out a hand each.” Shannon and Mina did so tentatively. “Now, shut your eyes.” Mina obliged.
Shannon didn’t, “Come on, Leighton. It’s not a surprise birthday gift, hand it over.”
“Shut your eyes and we’ll get this part over with.” Shannon rolled her eyes and then shut them.
“Ready?” Leighton asked.
“Yes,” they said in unison. Mina softly excited, Shannon more apathetic.
Leighton placed an item in each of their hands. “Open your eyes, then,” he urged.
“What the hell’s this?” Shannon asked.
“Not so loud.”
Mina made a perceptive noise.
“Yea, right?” Leighton asked excitedly.
“Yea, what?”
“Leighton?” Mina asked. “Are you really worried about them?” She waved the screwdriver across the expanse of the barn. Shannon looked stunned at the short, thin wood saw in her hand.
“Really?” Shannon asked.
Leighton took a submissive posture. “It’s just as a precaution. Once they see me gone-” he stopped and lowered his head along with his voice. “Once they see me gone, they might react-. Like, over react. I want you two to have the upper hand. Now, no more questions. Keep those close, we sleep. Well, you sleep. I pretend to sleep. Mina, can I wake you first when I leave. If I wake her,” he said pointing his thumb at his wife. “All she will do is worry until I open the door.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll keep watch.” She lowered her head. “You just make sure you come back.”
“Promise?” Shannon added.
“I promise. You know I’ll avoid making a promise about anything. This, I promise. Now, get some sleep, it’ll be a long night.”
Chapter 52 – Day 14
Leighton had caught himself almost falling asleep. Both the insi
de of the barn and the sky were almost pitch black, only the artificial lights offered any visibility. He pulled himself upright. Everyone else in the barn was asleep, told by the sounds of contrasting heavy breathing. He nudged Mina and she woke easily and silently as if she had also been faking it herself too. He pointed to his left wrist and mouthed the words ‘the time is now’.
Mina merely nodded and lay back down, her eyes focussed solely on the group of five sleeping on the other side of the barn. Leighton smiled to her grimly and started climbing as quietly as possible up the straw structure. He was parched. If he could find some water lying around on his travels he would succumb to it easily. At the top, he reached up and found he could just get his fingertips onto the exposed wooden support beam, the entrance to the outside world. He lifted weight off his feet until he was sure it would take his weight and then used his feet against the wall to scramble up until his head emerged through the gap.
His dehydrated forearms pumped quickly and gave him a sense of urgency to get himself clear. Using his feet on the corner support and reaching across to part of the roof, he eventually got himself out and he flattened himself to spread his weight against the decrepit asbestos. His left arm hung over the edge and he shook blood into it, suppressing the lactic acid. He tried to do the same to his right arm, but as it was above him on the sloping roof, it had little effect.
Leighton slid his legs towards the edge as he turned, taking hold of the grip of the beam and shuffled his hands until he could grasp the corner of the building – slightly jutting out from the rest of the wall – with the soles of his feet. The corner was in almost complete darkness, but he could see the light from the main centre of the complex spilling a path of light between him and the house. His hands started to cramp and he was spurred on in his descent. He shuffled his way down, hand over hand and feet together, lowering himself quickly. He put effort into not releasing a massive sigh of relief as his feet touched solid earth. He shook his hands out and pressed them together, it felt as though minutes had passed by the time the pain dulled. He was surprised at his calmness and supposed it was for the best.
Tariq walked down the decline towards the trees, he avoided looking at the lights so he could maintain his night vision, holding a hand in front of his eyes to block it. As he thought about it, he felt well rested. The chances of him being shot dead brought him a sense of impending death that was – in fact – quite comforting. The feeling as pre-operation morphine triggered, where one feels as though they will most probably not wake up and it most probably won’t matter. He felt as though it should worry him, but it seemed more likely that it would be necessary to making the risks he needed to complete his mission. Maybe that is how his father felt each time he had gone out. A feeling as though he wouldn’t return, but the rewards to everyone else would be worth it. Up until the time he didn’t return to his own family.
He took care not to trip as the hard ground undulated under foot. It would certainly do no good to fall and break a leg before he even got them free. He thought of them as being like the radicals he had known from Egypt. Fighting the army and the system in as much as a teenager could. Except that when he pondered it, those soldiers ahead of him no longer represented any existing system bar through the clothes they wore. The clothes and insignia of an archaic system.
Tariq realised that his hand was no longer blocking any light and he dropped his arm. The trees started in a clear-cut line dividing the inclined field with the woods. He paused and braced himself for a moment, knowing his footing would become worse from here on in. He stepped over roots, barely seen in the low light. He stooped low with his eyes locked no more than a few inches in front of his feet and pushed through with hardly a look up until his shoulders and neck became sore with the strain.
By the time he straightened up to save a tight knot from forming in his neck, the lights from the complex were visible between the trunks and branches ahead of him. The ground sloped down in front of him and he could see the shadows that the irregular ground caused. Each rise and fall creating crisp areas of shadow on the ground. He moved close to one, keeping thick trunks between him and the lights whenever possible, and tested it out. Lying down in one of them, he stretched his neck down to see the rest of his body. He was covered by the shadow. He mouthed to himself ‘let’s see how it looks from here, then’ and held his binoculars up to his eyes for one last time before he was to leave them behind.
The utility room on the other side of the house was Leighton’s next destination. He had crossed the path of light between the barn and main house and found another dark place. He was nestled down prone under one of the house’s dimly lit windows and looked out into the main part of the complex. He could see two of the soldiers patrolling at the far end where the path led up to the main road. The only real moving beings he had seen since being on the outside, though many a paranoid twitching turned his head in the time since reaching the ground.
He turned around and army-crawled to the rear corner of the house, his left shoulder grazing the wall the whole time. He inched his head out around the corner. The back of the house was mostly dark. At the ground floor, only a few small tendrils of light crept out, mottling the floor up to the opposite side of the building where a rectangle of light spread onto the unkempt grass. The upper floor looked to have no lights on at all. He figured they probably had people looking out from up there.
Leighton crawled his way to the other end, stopping only briefly to consider the interior of the house at a set of French doors, but finding that the furniture piled against it allowed for limited sight into the room. He reached the door to the utility room and hunkered next to the door. A small window next to the door sat ajar and neither that nor the glass in the door had a blind or curtain of any kind. He decided he would trust the darkness that shrouded him and stood up, pulling a couple of meters away from the wall and slowly shuffled to his side until more and more of the room became visible.
Mina was correct. It was full of guns. The soldiers had clearly brought much more than they needed, otherwise there were many more of them than the eight or so that manned the complex. Mina said she had seen the same people day in day out since her arrival, although a few seemed similar enough at a distance that she couldn’t be sure. Either way, there were a lot of guns. Apart from the guns, however, the room was thankfully empty, but was unlikely to be for an extended time. Leighton crouched back down under the door’s window and pressed his ear against the thin wood, listening intently. From there, the house seemed to creak and moan, but no obvious footsteps were sounding near enough to the utility room for him to make them out. The sound of his own heartbeat eventually drowned out all other noises and he pulled back.
He breathed out deeply to settle himself and stood back up. He needed a bold and quick movement and fighting his inhibition, tried the door handle, expecting either a loud creak or some resistance, but was received by neither. It opened easily. He furrowed his brow. ‘They hadn’t locked the door to their own fucking armoury,’ he thought, holding back a laugh. Stepping in, he quickly saw a rifle that looked the same as the one he had lifted from one of their dead and slung it over his shoulder swiftly and silently. As he turned to pick up a few magazines from the opposite shelf he noticed a dozen grenades in a small box in the corner and placed one into each of his trouser pockets. He took a quick glance for anything else of use – a sense of urgency building in his chest – and noticed a half full bottle of water on the window sill next to a handgun.
Picking both up gently enough not to make the warped plastic crack noisily, he left, pulling the door closed behind him. It was dark all the way to the treeline, he could get himself sorted when he was in cover. The magazines were still haphazardly clutched in his arms and the rifle swung into the backs of his knees with each step. He couldn’t bring himself to look back around. If one of them saw him, he would be dead, whether he saw it coming or not.
At this distance through the binoculars, the farm complex w
as so much more detailed it was strange. Over to his right, he could see two soldiers moving their way back down the path from the road, guns sitting in relaxed hands. He scanned as far as he could before the large grey animal shed blocked his view point and saw another two soldiers on the near side, walking away from the main buildings. Closer to the building, he saw a man sat lazily picking his teeth in the driver’s seat of a Land Rover with a rifle perched next to him on the passenger side. The main house itself had light spilling out the windows on the ground floor, but nothing except darkness from the upper.
His attention turned to the back of the house. He saw a rectangle of light distort against the grass. One of the soldiers must have entered from there. He couldn’t see anyone now, unless they had turned and gone behind the house itself. He swung the binoculars to the front of the house again and tried to judge the distance between it and the barn on the far side. The middle of the complex was well lit and he supposed that around the back of the house and the opposite side of the barn would be the best route to take. He scanned until he found the two men walking back in to the complex. He needed to know which side of the barn they would take on their way back.
Rustling to Tariq’s left disturbed him and he pulled the binoculars away from his eyes. Had he been seen so quickly? Lying covered in mud in a trough of mud, surely not. Purple spots from the light sources in the main complex seemed to completely cover his vision and he – disoriented – tried to pinpoint the movement by sound alone. It was coming closer, but was slowing in pace. Eventually it stopped somewhere ahead of Tariq. He heard a metallic click and clenched his eyes shut, willing the spots away. None of the soldiers had come out anywhere near this far while he had watched from the hilltop. This was throwing him off. He placed the binoculars under an exposed root and pulled himself flat in the lowest part of the natural gully. Next, he heard loud gulping. Whatever was creating the noise, it probably had a gun and was thirsty. The crack of plastic reached his ears along with a gasp.
Ousted: A thrilling debut novel of survival and humanity Page 27