Strike a Match 2

by Frank Tayell

  Ruth lowered her gun.

  “You did?” Ruth asked. “Because Emmitt said—”

  A window shattered as a figure leaped through it. Her jacket was smouldering, and hair was on fire, but Ruth recognised her torturer.

  “Eve!” she hissed, raising the gun, pulling the trigger over and over, but the magazine was empty. A large hand pushed her aside. Gregory lumbered past.

  “No!” Ruth hissed, raising the useless gun again. “She’s mine!”

  Gregory didn’t stop his pendulous run. The woman didn’t turn away. She patted at her smouldering clothing before taking a step toward the hulking man. Her hands disappeared under her coat and came out with two of those long needles. Gregory didn’t halt. He didn’t reach for the gun on his back. He stretched out his arms, as if he was intending to grapple with her.

  The woman ducked under his reach and stabbed a needle into his side. Gregory bellowed a terrible, inhuman wail as he grabbed her wrist. The woman’s left hand came around, stabbing into Gregory’s shoulder. This time, he gave nothing but a short hiss as he grabbed her left arm and lifted her off the ground. The woman kicked her feet toward the needles embedded in the man’s side. Gregory growled again, and this time Ruth thought there was almost a word in it. Then he twisted his hands. There was snap of bone, as the woman’s arms broke. She shrieked in pain. Gregory let go of her right wrist and reached for her throat.

  It was wrong. This wasn’t what Ruth wanted. Revenge in self-defence was one thing, but this was murder.

  “Stop!” she yelled.

  Gregory didn’t.

  Ruth took a step forward. “Stop!”

  There was an arm on her shoulder. Isaac.

  “Make him stop,” she said.

  “No.”

  “You have to try,” Ruth said.

  “I don’t, and I won’t.”

  “But this isn’t what I want,” she said.

  “This isn’t about you,” Isaac said.

  “It’s murder,” Ruth yelled.

  “No,” Isaac said quietly. “It’s revenge.”

  Gregory squeezed, tighter and tighter. The woman kicked and squirmed and then, abruptly, stopped. Gregory gave one last animalistic bellow before throwing her lifeless corpse against the church’s wall. Finally he turned back toward them, staggered a pace, and collapsed to his knees.

  Isaac ran toward the fallen man, lifting him back to his feet.

  “Help me! Please, Ruth.”

  She ran to Gregory. Her own back screamed with the effort as she helped lift him.

  The forest seemed strangely silent as they staggered through it. After fifty yards, they came to a clearing. Kelly was there, a rifle in her hands, a carriage and pair of horses a few paces behind. Isaac pushed Gregory into the back, Ruth followed. A moment later, the carriage began to move.

  Ruth breathed out. Her heart didn’t slow.

  Then there was light, not from a flashlight or candle, but from a flat square Isaac had pulled from his pocket. Was that a phone? Ruth didn’t care. She pulled herself up from the floor of the carriage, and into a seat. She leaned back, and winced with the sudden burst of pain.

  “Are you okay?” Isaac asked, as he slotted the phone into a bracket on the ceiling. A bracket, Ruth thought, designed for an object that size.

  “One more question that needs an answer,” she murmured.

  “I’m sorry?” Isaac asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Good. There’s a green bag under the seat. It’s a first-aid kit.”

  Ruth reached down, wincing with the effort, and passed it over.

  “He shouldn’t have killed her,” she said as Isaac pressed a bandage against Gregory’s side.

  “Put pressure here,” Isaac said. “He had the right to kill her.”

  “It was murder,” Ruth said.

  “No. It was revenge,” Isaac said. “There’s a difference.” He raised a hand to the light. It was coated in blood. “There’s another wound.”

  He tore open Gregory’s shirt. Blood pulsed from a hole, high up on the man’s chest.

  Isaac hissed, leaning forward, and clamped a bandage against the wound. Ruth stared at Gregory’s chest. It was a mass of white scars, carved with intricate precision deep into his skin.

  “Did she do that?” Ruth asked.

  “She did,” Isaac said. “She called it practice. Gregory is a baker. A very good one. He was a peaceful man with a wife and two children. She came to their home one night. Drugged them and chained them up. She tortured them. First the children, then his wife. Gregory’s screaming became too much of a distraction, so she removed his tongue. She left him for dead, but he survived. Now he’s had his revenge, but you know what he really wanted? He wanted to know why she did it.”

  “And you found him?” she asked.

  “I did. I didn’t think anyone, no matter how power-hungry would choose to employ her. It seems I miscalculated.”

  “Emmitt,” Ruth murmured. “Or was it?” The conversation they’d had started to come back to her. “He asked about you. It was all he seemed interested in.”

  “Me?” Isaac said.

  “You. He said he’d trade me information about my past if I’d tell him everything I knew about you. Strike a match, he knew you said that.”

  Isaac stared at her for a heartbeat.

  “Not the hospital!” he yelled.

  “What?” Kelly called back. The horses slowed. Her face appeared in the window at the front of the carriage.

  “We can’t take Gregory to the hospital,” Isaac said.

  “We have to,” Ruth said. “He’s dying.”

  “If Emmitt was after me, and if he’s still alive, that’s where he’ll go next,” Isaac said. “It won’t be safe.”

  “Where to?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Isaac said, speaking softly. “I didn’t want you to find out this way, but we’ve no choice.” His voice rose. “To the professor’s!” he called to Kelly. The carriage jolted forward.

  “Find out what? What’s going on? Why was Emmitt interested in you?” Ruth asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Isaac replied. “It begins with the Blackout, but this isn’t the place to tell you.”

  Gregory groaned.

  “Who’s the professor?” Ruth asked.

  “At one time, she was a skilled surgeon,” Isaac said. “Not this type of surgery, I’ll admit, and she hasn’t practiced medicine for years, but she can fish out a bullet. She’ll have to. We’ve got no choice.”

  “You’re going to tell me everything,” Ruth said.

  “Of course. Believe me, I’ve got just as many questions for you.”

  Ruth doubted it.

  She wasn’t sure how long the journey took. It was longer than minutes but shorter than hours, and it was still dark when the carriage came to a halt. There was something hauntingly familiar about the tree next to the carriage’s door.

  “This is The Acre,” she said. “My home. This is my home!”

  Isaac didn’t reply. He ran to the door.

  “Maggie!” he called, as he hammered on it.

  Upstairs, a curtain was drawn back. A match flared, a candle was lit. The light moved from window to window until it reached the ground floor. The door opened. Maggie didn’t look like she’d slept.

  “Isaac? What’s— Ruth? You’re alive. Henry said you’d been kidnapped. What’s happened to you?”

  “I’m fine,” Ruth said. “I—”

  “Time for that later,” Isaac said. “There’s a man hurt. I can’t take him to the hospital. He’s lost a lot of blood. Please.” Then, with a pleading formality, he added, “Professor, please.”

  Maggie looked at Isaac, then at Ruth.

  “He’s in there?” Maggie asked, walking across the path to the carriage. “Why can’t you take him to the hospital?”

  “It isn’t safe for him, or anyone who knows me.”

  Maggie paused. “What have you done now, Isaac?�
��

  “I…” Isaac sighed. “I don’t know. We can find out, but first there’s Gregory.”

  “Let me see him,” Maggie said brusquely. She opened the carriage door. “You, what’s your name?”

  “Kelly, professor.”

  “My name’s Maggie, and we need to get him inside. Ruth, light the candles, and clear the kitchen table. We’ll lay him on that.”

  “We need to get him away from here,” Isaac said. “You, too.”

  “If the bleeding isn’t stopped, he’ll be dead in ten minutes,” Maggie said. “Whatever trouble is following you, deal with it. Inside, Ruth, I need light.”

  Ruth went inside.

  Nothing made sense. Her mother was a teacher, not a doctor. Ruth lit the candles and dragged the cloth off the table. Why did Emmitt want Isaac? The questions built up and up, one on top of another, a giant teetering wall that she knew couldn’t stand.

  Isaac and Kelly carried Gregory inside. Ruth thought of staying, of listening to the muttered conversation in the hope that it might give some explanation, but found she couldn’t. She went outside, sat down on the cracked wooden bench underneath the apricot tree, and she cried.

  “Here,” Kelly said, after not nearly long enough.

  Ruth looked up and almost laughed. It wasn’t the handkerchief she’d been expecting, but the automatic pistol Isaac had given her back in the church.

  “It’s loaded. There’s three spare magazines. If trouble comes, get your mother and run. It doesn’t matter which direction. I’ll hold them off.”

  Ruth looked blankly at Kelly and then shook her head. Kelly went back to the carriage, came out a moment later with a long, thin bag, and proceeded to climb up to the roof of their house.

  Everything had changed so quickly. Yesterday, or she assumed it was yesterday, she’d been idly wondering where she would live after the school closed. Now, somehow, the house had become a trap. A sniper sat on their roof, a man was being operated on inside by her mother. Her mother the teacher, not the surgeon. Then there was Isaac. Without understanding why, she knew that everything she’d known was gone. Her childhood, her home, even, somehow, the woman who had raised her. All because of Emmitt. Her hand curled around the gun. He had to be stopped, not for revenge, nor even for justice, but because she couldn’t have a future as long as he roamed free. She went inside.

  “Can we move him?” she asked.

  “In a few minutes,” Maggie said. “He may die if we do, but he might die anyway.”

  She was bent over Gregory’s chest, probing at the wound.

  “Isaac, do you know of somewhere safe?” Ruth asked.

  “There’s a place, yes. Four miles from here.”

  “Is it clean?” Maggie asked.

  “Spotless,” Isaac said.

  “But he will need a hospital,” Maggie said. She looked up and finally seemed to notice her daughter. “What did they do to you?”

  Ruth looked down. Her clothes were tattered from where the torturer had ripped them. Where they weren’t, they were covered in blood.

  “It’s Gregory’s blood,” she said. “I’ll change. Then we’ll go.”

  She went upstairs. Her room seemed smaller than it ever had before. She wondered if she would come back. Even if she did, it wouldn’t be the same. From now on, it would be a place she might sleep, but it wasn’t a sanctuary. That was a childish notion, that a weak lock on a closed door created a refuge, but it had finally been ripped from her.

  Quietly cursing Emmitt for all he’d done, she grabbed some clothes and thrust them into the bag. After a moment’s hesitation, she took the ribbon from around the bear’s neck. She left the bear on the shelf. She had no need for toys, but the ribbon was evidence.

  Chapter 14

  Answers

  8th October

  “This is where you live? It’s not what I was expecting,” Ruth said, looking at the coffins displayed around the room.

  “A funeral home is anonymous,” Isaac said. “They’re a part of civilisation that no one wants to think of, yet for which there’s always a need. Most coffins were built to survive a century, and they are exempt from the scavenger’s tax. No one questions when a cartload are brought into the city, nor do they search inside.”

  “So you only live here when you’re in Twynham? It’s not your home?” Ruth asked, reading between the lines.

  “It’s good to see that your inquisitiveness survived the ordeal,” Isaac said, flashing his crooked, knowing smile.

  Ruth took a breath, but before she could let fly, the door to the basement opened.

  “Gregory’s unconscious, but alive,” Maggie said, coming into the room. “I’ve stopped the bleeding, and he’s stable, but he needs proper care. Are you sure that boy will know what to do with a living person?”

  “Johnny can be trusted,” Isaac said. “As can Mrs Zhang. Kelly, go and find Captain Mitchell. Bring him here.”

  Kelly headed to the door.

  “Wait,” Ruth said.

  “What?” Kelly and Isaac asked simultaneously.

  “Your rifle,” Ruth said. “You can’t wander the streets carrying that.”

  Kelly looked blank, seemingly having forgotten the weapon slung across her back. She leaned it against the wall, and left.

  “She’s got a surname?” Ruth asked, looking through the door to where Mrs Zhang sat at the small desk in the waiting area at the front of the funeral home. The shotgun under the desk was visible to Ruth though not to anyone who might come through the door.

  “It’s a necessity of running this business,” Isaac said.

  “Do you have a surname?” Ruth asked.

  “I do, but it’s not important,” Isaac said.

  “I think I’ll be the one to judge that,” Ruth said.

  “Why don’t we sit down,” Maggie said. “Ruth’s right, she deserves some answers. But not in here.” She waved a hand to take in the rows of empty coffins. “Is there somewhere not filled with so much expectation of death?”

  Isaac led them through to a small room behind the showroom. He sat. Maggie took a chair almost, but not quite, as far away from him as she could. Ruth stayed standing.

  “Who are you, Isaac? Who are these people who follow you? Why don’t you have surnames? And why are you more important to Emmitt than details about the investigation into his crimes?”

  “Everyone who joins me is seeking a new life,” Isaac said. “There are many reasons people do that, and often it is associated with the person who gave them their name. So, for the most part, surnames are a hindrance. As to who we are? Waifs and strays, dedicated to preserving the ways and ideas of the old world that might otherwise get lost during these tumultuous years. We like to think of ourselves as guardians of the technology and knowledge that, twenty years ago, they called civilisation.”

  “Like the people who work at the chemical works, going through old research papers?” Ruth asked.

  “Yes and no,” Isaac said. “They focus on scientific discoveries with a commercial application. We tend toward the more esoteric.”

  Ruth weighed up the answer, decided it was thoroughly lacking, and changed tack. “Why do you bother?” she asked.

  “Because civilisation doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “What we call civilised, and which might one day become something more, is a fragile thing. Canada is less of a nation, and more of an idea preserved by a handful of farmers. The United States is one wrong word away from outright civil war. Britain is one bad leader away from monarchic despotism. Ireland has already fragmented into its ancient kingdoms, even if the rulers there call themselves elected. Europe and Africa are geographical distinctions, not collections of nation states. Those coastal communities are two aid-shipments away from starvation. The Eurasian interior is a swarming mass of warlords and dictators who won’t be stopped in our lifetime. All that prevents them from sweeping down on this island is disease and distance. But it may happen. If it does, then we can’t lose everything that once
was learned. We can’t let this become the beginning of a new Dark Age.”

  “Emmitt said something similar,” Ruth said. “Something about how we’re at a turning point. Where one small action can change the outcome of the future.”

  “That’s interesting,” Isaac said. “But the world has always been on the brink of some tectonic shift. Every action is a product of all the events that went before. Every discovery has required dozens before then. Every political movement requires the right combination of social and economic factors.”

  “That’s one theory,” Maggie said, “I’m not sure I agree with it.”

  “And it’s utterly irrelevant,” Ruth said.

  “And I agree with that,” Isaac said. “Would you like some tea?”

  “No.”

  Isaac walked over to a cupboard. “I am not trying to influence anyone. I want to keep the ideas safe against the time they’re needed again. There’s some soup here,” he said, picking up a can. “Summer vegetables, whatever they are.”

  Ruth’s stomach growled. She wasn’t sure what time it was, or even what day it was, except that it had been a long time since she’d eaten. “Are you telling me that you’re not trying to nudge things along?” she asked. “Because I know that would be a lie, and you promised the truth.”

  “A lie?” Isaac opened another cupboard and took down a long rectangle with two raised metal circles, and a long cable.

  “You’re here, aren’t you?” Ruth said. “If you just wanted to preserve knowledge, you’d stay far away and avoid contact with everyone. No, you want to control events just as much as Emmitt.”

  “I suppose that’s debatable,” Isaac said. He removed a tile from the wall, exposing an electrical plug, and plugged in the hot plate. “Perhaps I would best express my goals by saying I hope to hasten civilisation’s return. A world with fridges, air conditioning, microwaves, and soft toilet paper is one worth striving for.” He gave her a smile. She didn’t return it.

  “And phones, computers, and networks,” she said. “I’ve gathered that much. All of those require electricity, and more than we have here. So where do you live, Isaac? Where do you go when you aren’t here?”