Shelter

by Dave Hutchinson

  “No.”

  “He might just have been passing through.” Nell thought there was something in his eyes like a predator weighing up a prey animal, a cool emotionless assessment. “You might have seen him.”

  “He’d have to be fucking crazy to want to come through here,” muttered Anthea.

  “Sorry?” said the rider amiably. “Didn’t quite catch that.”

  “We haven’t seen any strangers for a long while,” Nell said. “Who are you?”

  “Friends of Adam’s.”

  “Where are you from?”

  The rider smiled, a slow, small, sly and utterly disgusting smile, and he and his companion moved to one side to let the wagons by. As they passed, he sketched a mocking little salute at Nell.

  “Scary cunts,” Anthea said when they were clear, but Nell was already forgetting about the newcomers.

  At the farm, a large group of people – more people than Nell had ever seen in one place before – had gathered, inside and outside the compound. Hundreds of them. They were all armed and they were all angry.

  Nell got Anthea to stop the wagon just outside the compound, and she sat looking at Patrick’s army – her army.

  “All right,” she said, almost inaudibly. “All right.”

  MORTY, SKELETAL AND filthy and almost entirely feral, picked his way across the rubbish-littered yard of the abandoned farm. He didn’t know who it had once belonged to, and he didn’t care. It was a long time since he had eaten properly; the chunk of cheese he’d found at the predator’s latest tableau had barely even taken the edge off his hunger. He was moving in a dream, the exterior world unreal and drifty. He shot everyone he encountered; sometimes he killed them, sometimes not, it didn’t seem to matter any longer.

  The farmhouse had been looted and burned out, but a couple of chickens remained in one of the henhouses, had probably returned here after whatever had happened was over. He caught them quickly, wrung their necks, tied their feet together and slung them over his shoulder.

  In the house, he found a couple of jars of dried meat. He popped a couple of strips in his mouth and chewed them, put the jars in his satchel. He was searching for more food, or anything useful, when he heard voices out in the yard.

  Unslinging the semi-automatic – conscious that he didn’t have a lot of ammunition left for it now – he went to one of the soot-smudged windows and peered out. Two men were outside, wearing long, hooded coats and cradling shotguns in their arms. Behind them, near the gate, two horses were tied up to a smashed wagon.

  They didn’t seem to be searching for anything, just wandering about, poking at bits of broken furniture and equipment lying on the ground. One of them looked at the house, gestured to the other. Neither of them seemed in the least bit nervous or worried. Morty thought they looked rather amused, cocky. They started to move towards the house.

  When they were almost there, Morty stepped out into the open doorway and shot them both dead. He quickly searched the bodies for ammunition, went over to the horses and looked through the saddlebags, finding wrapped bread rolls, cheese, apples. He hadn’t seen an apple since he was a boy, and he bit into it hungrily, the juice running down his chin and through his beard while he looked at the two dead men lying in the mud. They didn’t seem local; something about their clothes and their body language was different. He wondered who they were.

  He took out his knife, stooped down, pulled back the hood of the first body, and began to cut.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  HE AND CHRISSIE had been stupid. They’d forgotten all about Eleanor’s field equipment, presumed stashed and lost somewhere in Thanet. Frank’s people had obviously found her radio at least, and had heard Chrissie giving him map references as she navigated him towards Blandings. All Albie’d had to do was follow him, and he doubted Albie had come alone.

  The thought that it was utterly ridiculous to send people halfway across the country just to retrieve a gun and the person who had stolen it never occurred to Adam, because it certainly had not occurred to Frank.

  How they’d got to here from Blandings was something he was going to have to worry about later. He could leave the area, head south towards the coast, hitch a ride back to Devon with one of the trading boats; he might even get lucky and find a boat from Guz in harbour somewhere. He could stay here, hide out and let them give up looking for him and go away.

  Adam went to the window and looked out into the compound of the Abbot farm. Hail and sleet were battering down, the yard slowly flooding now there was no one here to clear it. Lightning was blinking in the clouds, answered by long slow rumbles of thunder. As he watched, a bedraggled sheep wandered across the yard and out through the broken-down gate.

  There was a door in the corner of the kitchen. He’d locked and bolted it, but he needn’t have worried; the locals were treating the place like a sacred shrine. He unlocked it, found a lantern, lit it, and went down the steps on the other side.

  The cellar ran the full length of the house, ankle-deep in water now, jars and bits of rubbish floating on the surface. There were racks along one wall where Paul had kept his tools, and most of those were empty, stripped by the Abbots’ neighbours the morning after the slaughter. At the far end, Adam hung the lantern on a hook in the wall and moved a stack of wooden crates until he uncovered a wheelbarrow full of bottles. He checked the seals, then shook the little plastic box of homemade fuses. All the time he was going through the two options. Slip away, head south. Stay and hide until the enforcers left. He kept seeing Rhoda’s battered face, kept seeing bodies hanging from the gallows at the Clock Tower, turning in the wind and spray.

  THEY HAD A rough perimeter around their camp, patrolled in pairs. He sat in a tree and watched them through his binoculars. It was hard to tell just how many of them there were, but he estimated over forty, maybe as many as fifty, which in one way was rather flattering but in another was just a demonstration of how Frank accomplished everything. Has someone offended you? Make an example of them by sending a ridiculous number of people to bring him back. Because you can, and because it will dissuade others from doing the same. He wondered how they’d got here; if they’d tried to pass through the High Weald in numbers like that they’d have run up against the Nassingtons. Not that it mattered. They were here now.

  The enforcers were a long way from being professional; they relied on simple brutality to get things done. But compared to the locals – particularly at the moment when everything was in a state of utter chaos – they were like an invading army. Fifty well-armed and relatively organised men could take over the Parish with not a lot of effort, if that was what it took to find him and take him back to Margate.

  He watched Albie moving among the tents pitched between the trees, stopping at a fire and tasting whatever was cooking in a pot suspended over it. What was going on under that shaved scalp? Far from home, was loyalty to Frank starting to wear thin? Had his journey across the country with his little army put ideas in his head? Was he, with his patient predator’s eye, regarding the Parish as a place to start his own kingdom, far from the rot and struggle of the Kent coast? Was he actually thinking of staying here? Adam thought he might be, because that was how his own mind would be working, if their positions were reversed.

  There was a commotion in the camp, and he watched as two men rode in, each leading a horse. Each of the horses had the body of an enforcer draped over the saddle. Albie and some of the others went over to the new arrivals. Adam watched as Albie lifted the heads of the dead men to get a look at their faces, then dropped them again. He turned to the waiting enforcers and said something, and then they were all in motion, breaking down the camp, getting ready to move out. Even at this distance through the binoculars, the look on Albie’s face was one which Adam was familiar with, the look he got when someone had offended him and he was about to dish out a beating.

  The enforcers weren’t concerned with being neat and tidy. It only took them a few minutes to fold up their camp and move o
ut. When they’d gone, Adam climbed down from his tree and went over to where it had been. Rubbish everywhere, fires not properly extinguished. The whole place stank of horse piss. He picked up a discarded boot, its upper completely separated from the sole at the toe, and thought about Betty Coghlan talking about bootmaking machines, and Paul Abbot telling him that the people before The Sisters had been too reliant on civilisation. The people of the Parish had relied on themselves for too long, shut themselves off behind their walls, looked not much further than the boundaries of their own little world. And now the monsters from outside had come, hothoused by Frank Pendennis.

  Movement in the bushes made him turn, bringing up the rifle, thinking Albie had left someone behind to guard the camp, but the figure which stepped out was not an enforcer. Was only, really, vaguely recognisable as human. It was filthy, smeared with dirt and blood and ordure, its clothes in tatters, hair and beard matted. Its eyes were wild, and it raised hands which were covered in blood. Its face was twisted into a truly horrible smile.

  “Don’t shoot,” it said, in a voice which sounded as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time. “Please.” Its face was twisted into what looked like a child’s impression of innocence.

  The figure didn’t seemed to be armed, but it had a satchel slung over one shoulder. Adam kept the rifle trained on its chest. “What do you want?”

  “I’m...” The ragged man’s voice trailed off. He tried again. “I’m....” His face contorted in grief. “I’ve been killing them,” it said.

  Adam had thought the Parish had exhausted all its surprises, but obviously he’d been wrong. “What?”

  “I want to help you,” said the ragged man. “I’m like you.”

  Adam stared. “I’m a bit busy right now,” he said.

  “I’ve been doing your work,” the ragged man said, hands still raised above its head. “I brought you a present. Can I show you?” He started to reach for the satchel.

  “Oh no,” Adam said. “You stop right there.”

  The ragged man lifted his hands in what looked a lot like supplication. “I brought it for you,” he said, and he sounded on the verge of tears.

  Adam thought of the enforcers, riding off who knew where, to do who knew what. “I haven’t got time for this,” he said.

  The ragged man said, “It’ll only take a moment,” and he reached for the satchel again.

  “Stop,” Adam told him.

  “I only want to show you your present.” The words were almost a sob.

  ‘Absurd’ didn’t even begin to cover it. Adam said, “Put it on the ground and step away.”

  The ragged man broke into a grin which was the most awful facial expression Adam had seen, and he nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. Of course. You’ll want to look for yourself.” And he slipped the strap from his shoulder and let the satchel fall to the ground.

  “Now step away,” Adam said. The ragged man took a step to one side. “Further. Further. Okay. That’ll do. Keep your hands up.”

  Keeping one eye on the ragged man, he stepped forward and flipped open the satchel with the muzzle of his rifle. He poked inside to widen the mouth of the bag, glanced down.

  Inside was a mass of blood and flesh and human hair.

  “I did it for you,” he heard the ragged man say.

  Adam took a step back from the satchel, then another. He looked at the ragged man, and it was like looking in a mirror. He felt the full horror of what he had been doing for the past few days wash over him like a wing of darkness. He took another step back and raised the rifle, sighted on the ragged man’s chest.

  “Go,” he said, voice almost a whisper. Then louder, “Go. Go before I shoot you.”

  “But...”

  “Fuck off!” Adam shouted. “Go away!”

  The ragged man was actually crying now, hands still over his head, tears cutting tracks through the filth on his cheeks. “I only wanted to help you,” he said between choking sobs.

  “Just go,” Adam said, suddenly bone-weary of this madhouse and everyone in it. “No, leave that.” The ragged man was moving towards the satchel. “No souvenirs. Go away. Go home.”

  “This is my home...”

  “I don’t care. Get out of here.”

  The simpering, inept impersonation of a smile disappeared, replaced by something appalling. “I thought you were different,” said the ragged man, and his voice was level and emotionless.

  Adam started to back away. One step, then another, then another, until he felt confident enough to turn and start to run.

  Behind him, the ragged man shouted, “I thought you understood!”

  WORN THIN BY lack of sleep, Harry walked out into the pouring rain and looked around the yard. The compound was full of people, all of them armed, all of them fidgety. They watched him as he passed, as if waiting for him to give orders, which he thought was sourly funny because he didn’t have the first idea what to do. He should, it suddenly occurred to him, have got everyone in here right at the start. Just sat them down and told them to stay here until things cooled down and tempers calmed. The irony was, nobody would have listened to him back then. They were happy enough to want him to tell them what to do now, when it was too late. He had a sudden and very strong urge to tell them to all fuck off home and take their chances on their own.

  Up on the wall, Wendy was standing looking over a revetment of sacks hurriedly filled with earth. She glanced at him as he climbed the steps and stood beside her.

  “You look awful,” he said.

  “You can talk.” She didn’t look as if she’d slept much, either. If at all. He stared down the track leading into the woods. “How the fuck did all this happen, Wendy?” he said.

  He hadn’t expected an answer, but she said, “Well, your Rob and his mates decided to have a go at Max, who killed them. Then young Walter decided to kill Faye Ogden. Then the Taylors decided to attack those farms down south, fuck knows why. Then the southsiders came up and attacked the Taylors. And then everything just got really fucking stupid, Harry. Just really fucking stupid.”

  Harry supposed it was as good a summary as he was going to get, even if none of it made any sense. He said, “They might not come.”

  Wendy looked at him. “We killed Patrick. Rose is going to come here and wipe us out.”

  “Rose is sick. John Race said.”

  “Well, then nobody’s in charge over there now. This isn’t going to stop until we’re all dead.”

  “Their Nell will take over,” he said. “She’s got a level head.”

  “Nell’s fifteen. And if you think she’s going to let us get away with killing Patrick, you’re in for a shock.”

  “We didn’t kill Patrick.” He’d been going over the events in the village again and again in his mind, and he was sure the shot that had killed the Taylor boy had come from behind him, behind his men. Maybe in one of the deserted houses. “It was Wayland.”

  Wendy snorted. “Wayland. Fucking hell, Harry, I wish you luck trying to talk Nell into believing that.”

  “He’s been here all along, sniping at both sides, setting us against each other.”

  “Why? Why would anyone do that?”

  “You saw what he did over at Gracie Farr’s distillery. Is there anyone here who has explosives? Who even knows how to make them?”

  “Betty Coghlan and that Andrew know how.”

  They’d had this conversation before, but now he thought about it. Actually thought about it very carefully, because it was the only explanation that really made sense. He didn’t know the Coghlans very well – had only met Betty a handful of times, and all those times she’d been perfectly civil to him – but they and the Taylors went way back.

  “If they were involved, we’d be having this conversation at the bottom of a smoking hole in the ground,” he said finally. “And why would they kill Patrick, anyway?”

  “Did you find a sign? Something with Wayland’s name on it? Not that that would prove anything.”

/>   He’d been too busy trying to save his own life to look for one. He rubbed his eyes.

  “They’re not going to care who did it, Harry,” Wendy said with a heavy sigh.

  “I should go over there and explain.”

  She stared at him. “Don’t be so fucking soft, Harry. They’d kill you before you even got near the farm. It’s a miracle they didn’t kill you last time. Explain. Jesus Christ, they wouldn’t listen. Seriously.” She shook her head and looked down the track again. “You’re a nice man, Harry, and you’ve been a good boss, but you do talk some bollocks sometimes.”

  For some reason, that made him smile, and he was still smiling when movement down the track caught his eye and a single rider came into view.

  “Ah, shit,” he said.

  “I’ll give her this, she’s got guts,” said Wendy. Raising her voice, she called, “Hold your fire! Anyone shoots, I’ll have your fucking ears!”

  All alone, Nell Taylor rode unhurriedly up the track towards the gate. She was wearing a rain poncho with the hood thrown back, and her soaking wet hair was plastered to her head. She seemed to be unarmed. She rode right up to the gate and stopped and looked up at Harry.

  “Mr Lyall,” she said.

  “Good morning, Nell,” said Harry.

  “I’m sorry this had to happen,” she said.

  “Me too. It didn’t have to.”

  “Dad’s fever broke yesterday. He’s going to be all right, I think.”

  “That’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard in quite a while. Give him my regards, will you?”

  She didn’t answer, just sat there looking up at him. “I know a lot of this was down to Patrick,” she said. “But he’s dead now.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Nell. That had nothing to do with us.”

  Nell smiled a sad little smile. “That doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “No. No, I suppose not.”

  She sat up straighter in the saddle and her voice grew stronger. “You’ve been a good friend to us in the past, Mr Lyall, and I wanted to thank you for that.”