I took a deep, heaving breath and let the adrenaline subside as I pushed my hands into the ground, trying to steady their shaking.
‘Not as easy as it looks after you’ve done it,’ I muttered, trying to smile and take away from the fact that I had just killed two creatures.
I had to constantly remind myself that it was us or them, though. We survived, or they did. Any animal would have had no problem feeding on our bodies if we left ourselves to starve.
It was a terrible thought that I quickly cast out of my mind as I brought myself to my feet, bringing the gun over my shoulder once again by the strap.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s check it out.’
Chapter Three
Farm and Incident
Carl and I stood over the two carcasses, a low stream of blood trickling from both as they laid there in the grass, lifeless.
‘We need to get these back before they start to fester and completely go to waste,’ I said. ‘While we’re out here, though, I’d really prefer it if we could get on with the crops rather than make two trips…’
‘Hang on…’ Carl muttered, pulling off his rucksack and opening it. After a little rifling around he retrieved a large sheet of tarpaulin, folded up tightly and bound with elastic. He released the holdings and opened it up, spreading it out on the grass by the deer. ‘We can put them on these. Keep vermin from the ground away.
‘Good thinking,’ I said, smiling and nodding at him.
With a little apprehension we managed it - the feel of the fur beneath my hands was something that I would never get used to, regardless of how many occasions similar animals had wandered into the fields before and had died at my hand.
A few minutes later they were laid out.
‘Should we get them now?’ Carl asked.
‘No,’ I said, ‘they’re about to do a changeover on the lookout posts. Let’s leave them here, check up on the crops and head back. We can get the Ranger out to pick them up once we head back over. They’re too heavy to carry.’
With one last look about amongst the field and the early morning breeze we set off in the direction of the crop field, which was just beyond a small makeshift bridge and down a slope about a quarter of a mile ahead.
When it finally came into view and we looked out across, I had to take another second to admire the view of what we had created during our time here.
The crop field was surrounded by fences, and stretched out about two square acres. It was cut off in even sections, each adorned with a different variety of plant, herb or, most importantly, fruit or vegetable array. Two of us headed out, twice a day, to check on things, and we were soon beginning to consider having a few people out here full time to keep watch over it all – it was vital to our survival.
In the long-term, we couldn’t have been luckier in finding such a place as this. It benefited from the sun and the rain in equal, rich amounts, and was at the bottom of a small but steep inlet that kept it hidden from view, with trees surrounding it. We had come up with our own way of keeping the pests away over the years, with a variety of booby traps and the like. Every so often one would go off and a small team of us would have to head off in the dead of night to check it out, armed to the nines.
Most of the time it was just a stray animal trying to make its way through the fence for a grand feast, but every so often we would find human remains.
I didn’t like to think about who those people might have been, but if I did I always thought back to the notion of survive or be killed.
Them or us.
The only way in that didn’t warrant getting blown up or maimed was the way we were headed – a small entrance down some steps that led through a chained up door in the fence.
Carl and I took the steps to the bottom steadily, one at a time, before we reached the door and I unlocked it, and we both headed inside.
The farm was one of my favourite places in this small world that we occupied. It was something that we had built for ourselves. We were living off of the land, and we were doing it without industrial intervention or with the help of anybody else.
Despite the fact that I still yearned for a more comfortable world, even fifteen years on from the outbreak, there was something noble in all of this that I couldn’t help but appreciate endlessly as I stood amongst the various plants that flourished and grew around me, waiting for their daily dose of sunlight.
‘What needs checking?’ Carl asked eagerly, looking around himself.
‘Corn, aubergine and carrots. Go give them a look, make sure they’re not getting too dehydrated. Haven’t had rain for a couple days. If any are ripe make sure to bag them, they’ll be good with the veal tonight. I’ll check the strawberries and the tomatoes. Meet back here when you’re good to go.’
Without a word, Carl nodded and headed off into the field to check on the allocated crops, while I headed off to see mine.
I took in the smells of the earth and the leaves, of all the things that were growing around me. It brought a smile to my face like nothing else did.
When I reached the patch of strawberries and tomatoes I stopped to look them over, kneeling by the many rows that held thousands of them and brushing my fingers over the leaves. Like the deer, they were another thing in this world that didn’t need to answer to anything else, that could continue on growing and thriving of their own volition.
The vices that struck the rest of the human race down did not affect so many other things.
Everything looked well, and for the first time in a while I felt a moment of calm that washed over me there in the solitude of the field, amongst the many things that we grew there.
Of course, that calmness wasn’t going to last for long.
I hadn’t heard from Carl in a while, but when he shouted my name it came right after I heard the creaking of the gate opening – the one that we had both come through just a few minutes ago.
‘Tommy!?’ He yelled, and in a second I was bounding through rows of high plants until I finally reached the centre column where Carl stood. He looked shocked above anything, and when I looked in his direction for the second time that morning I saw why.
Immediately, I swung the gun from over my shoulder and pointed the barrel straight ahead of us.
Standing just inside the gate, in about as frozen a position as Carl, was a man I had never seen before. He was clad in dirtied clothes beneath a faded green utility jacket, with severely unkempt hair and a muddy face.
He held his hands above his head – both were empty. He didn’t seem to have a weapon on him.
‘Freeze, motherfucker,’ I said, holding the gun steady in my hand. ‘Don’t move.’
‘All right, all right,’ he said hurriedly, both of his hands shaking as he held them above his head. ‘I don’t mean any harm.’
‘Neither do we, but saying it doesn’t mean much,’ I said, not taking my eyes off him. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s… My name’s Luke.’ – I could hear the southern accent in his voice straight away. – ‘I’ve been walking and just came by this field… Or is it your field? I’m real hungry is all…’
‘Damn right it’s our field,’ Carl said. I could hear the embitterment in his voice.
‘Don’t,’ I muttered to him, making sure that no volatile emotions came into this. It sounded stupid but anything could cause a slip-up at any moment, including acting and speaking on impulse. ‘Listen,’ I continued, shouting over to the man, ‘we don’t mean you any harm and it’s not our intention to hurt you, but you have to understand the position we’re in right now. We don’t know you. Now, my friend here is gonna come and make sure that you aren’t holding anything that might cause any harm to come to us-’
‘What?’ Carl exclaimed to me incredulously. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I’ll keep a gun on him the whole time,’ I whispered to Carl, still keeping my eyes on our visitor. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Carl hesitated, looking at me and back at the man several ti
mes before taking a deep breath and finally edged his way towards the man, as if trying put the act off indefinitely.
Within a few feet of the man Carl came to a stop, glancing back at me before turning back to him.
‘No hard feelings, buddy,’ he said, ‘I’m just gonna need to make sure you ain’t carrying anything dangerous.’
Carl reluctantly brought his hands to the man’s arms – honestly, I didn’t expect anything to happen seeing as how shaken the guy looked, but if anything my ability to reason with reality always slipped when I needed it most, just like this morning with the deer.
And right now.
The moment Carl’s hands came into contact with the man, our visitor executed a series of movements that I couldn’t even pin down with my sight as I watched them. He moved so quickly that it was almost incomprehensible, but at the end of it all, and after Carl grunted with fear and confusion, he was holding my companion from behind with Carl’s own knife pressed to his throat.
Things had gone downhill faster than I had ever seen. His movements had been so precise, I had no doubt that he had a military background.
Within a second I raised the gun up and aimed, pointing the barrel at the man’s head.
‘Tommy!’ Carl shouted, but the man held him in place like a bird held down a worm it was about to destroy.
‘Don’t fucking move, Carl!’ I shouted. ‘Let him go!’
‘You just stay right where you are,’ the man muttered, pressing the knife against Carl’s throat. It was nowhere near enough to kill him, but I could already see the spots of blood appearing on his skin. ‘Now, I’m real fucking hungry, boy, and I plan on taking a few samples from this here farm of yours before I do anything else. So how’s about you lower that gun of yours, or I can just go ahead and water some of the plants with your buddy’s blood.’
Carl clenched his eyes shut and let out a cry of fear. This was just how quickly things could go to shit.
‘So are you gonna lower that gun or not?’
I thought back to the field, to that moment of hesitation. A myriad of possible courses played out in my head, the endless variety of ways that this could go.
I looked Carl in the eye. I didn’t wink, or say anything, or make any kind of movement to signal to him. Right then, though, he caught his bearings and looked back at me, and after a few moments and some sharp, desperate breaths, he nodded at me and clenched his eyes shut.
I took another quick, controlled breath and closed one eye, peering through the scope.
With only a momentary glance at the future course of the bullet, I pulled the trigger.
Things moved astonishingly quickly. Carl brought his arms up to his throat in an effort to protect himself from anything that might connect with him. The cracking sound of the gun sounded through the fields for the third time that morning as the round struck the invader right between the eyes. The knife fell from his head and stuck into the ground, handle up, shaking there for a moment before he fell backwards onto the dirt by the door.
Chapter Four
Disposal and Return
‘Carl. Carl! Are you all right?’
He stood on the spot, shaking, running his hands over his throat as I bounded towards him.
‘Let me see your neck!’ I said hurriedly, pulling his hands away and looking at the blood on his throat. Thankfully it was nothing but a flesh wound.
‘Is it okay? Am I gonna die?’
‘You’re gonna just be fine,’ I assured him, ‘We’ll get Mae to tidy it up a little, make sure it doesn’t get infected.’
‘Wha… What?’ He shuddered, his eyes filling up with tears – not from the cut but from the rushing adrenaline and shock of everything that had just happened. ‘Won’t that sting?’
‘It’ll hurt a lot less than an infected oesophagus.’
‘What’s an oesophagus?’
‘Your throat.’
‘Oh.’
I took a second to calm myself down and let Carl take a breath. An awkward laugh suddenly escaped me as I took in the situation. I looked over at the body of the man on the floor, and my smile fell away.
Another one dead, and it had been my fault.
‘Thanks… Thank you, Tommy. You saved me.’
‘Don’t you worry about it… Listen, let’s not tell anybody back at Bastion about this, all right?’
‘Why not?’
‘We don’t want everybody getting scared, do we? I’m pretty sure this was a one-off, just some straggler out in the wilderness… I’ll keep an eye out anyways, though. Get some of our lot to keep watch later on tonight.’
‘Okay…’
‘I’ll get rid of the body. Listen, I want you to head back and tell them to get the Ranger to go pick up the deer in the field. Get Mae to have a look at your neck. Tell her you just had an accident. I’ll come back with the crops in a little while, all right? If they ask about the gunshots just say it was the deer.’
‘What about the third shot?’
‘Tell them it was another accident.’
‘Okay… Okay…’
Carl made a move to set off, taking the steps one at a time, slowly.
‘Carl,’ I called after him. He turned and looked down at me. ‘You did good, all right?’
He forced a smile and nodded, before turning and setting off back up the trail. Eventually he took off out of sight, and I was left alone in the field, wondering how even this place of growth couldn’t avoid the spilling of blood.
I looked down at the man’s body, lifeless, his mouth hanging open as he laid there spread eagle.
I had killed before, people and animals, but only for the purposes of survival. It was something I had never gotten used to and I doubted that I ever would, but deep down I knew that that was something I was glad about. All I wanted was to keep to myself, and to look after our community… If that meant killing those that posed a threat, then so be it.
It didn’t mean I took any pride in it – it was nothing but a necessity, the will to live.
***
My body was one that had been moulded by the environment in which I had had to exist – constant movement, work, and eating whatever I could. I had a raw strength that allowed me to move the man’s body up the hill with little difficulty, and when I reached the top I set off around the edge towards one of the untouched patches of forest that we hardly ever used.
Desperation with reference to our values allows us to do things that we might not otherwise consider ourselves doing – there are certain extreme situations where we can react with ease because our lives depend on it, and this was one of those for me. Despite the gravitas of all of this, I still carried out the job with quickness and calmness. If it hit me later, I’d just have to deal with it.
When I was a good way into the forest I dropped the body to the floor, wondering at its limpness, something that I had never gotten used to in my experience of this unfortunately familiar sight. I didn’t have a shovel with me, and if I left the body here too long it would attract all manner of vermin and creature that would then find its way to our farm.
I would have to return that night to bury it.
I looked around myself for a moment in the silence of the forest searching for any sign of movement, before heading back towards the farm.
***
Twenty minutes later, by my watch at least, I was making my way back across the field where we had shot the deer with a bag filled to the brim with vegetables. By the two carcasses stood Carl and Leah, and behind them was the Ranger with its trunk wide open and a tarpaulin laid out in the back.
‘Let’s get a move on, guys!’ I shouted, heading over to them, ‘Don’t want them to go bad.’
I winked at Carl, who smiled back at me – he had gotten himself together pretty quickly.
Leah was due to take over from Larry for the next guard shift. She was something of a tomboy, who took pretty well to the fallen world that we occupied. She had a can-do attitude that suited Bastion effortlessl
y.
‘Only you could get this fucking lucky,’ she laughed, ruffling her short, dark hair. ‘Tell you something, you’re gonna be in everybody’s good books tonight. You seen Carl’s neck?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘just a little accident while we were in the farm. Take a seat in the Ranger, Carl. We’ll handle this.’
I handed him the bag of food and he pulled himself into the passenger seat. Leah and I took up the tarpaulin with both of the deer, each finding two corners, and clenching them tightly in our hands.
‘You… All right…?’ She strained her voice as we lifted the carcasses, only just managing to drop them into the trunk without dropping them on the floor. They were much heavier than the malnourished body I had moved into the forest. ‘You look a little off.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ I said, both of us breathing deeply, ‘I’m just a little tired, it’s still early.’
‘Well with a haul like this I’d say you’ve earned your right to go take a rest.’
I jumped on the back and sat upon the open trunk by the deer while Leah drove us back to Bastion. The retrofitted garage door was still open when we returned, and one of our lot pulled it shut as we parked up.
Leah and Carl both came back around to see me as I jumped from the back.
‘I’m heading back home for a little while,’ I said, ‘Carl, you did good this morning, you can take the morning off too. Before you do that, though… Could you two spread the word that we’re having a feast tonight? Let everybody know. We’ll get the park benches out and have a community dinner in the street. It’s been a tough few weeks, and everybody deserves it.’
‘That’s what I like to hear, boss,’ Leah said, heading off to retrieve Sam, our designated cook and butcher, all rolled into one package. I had been told by the older one’s in our community that he was one of the only things that hadn’t changed come the end of civilisation – he was just as insane as every chef that had come before him.
‘Look after yourself, Carl,’ I said, patting him on the arm as I walked by him, on the way back to my house. ‘Our secret, right?’
The Survivors of Bastion (Fall of Earth Book 1) Page 3