The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker

by Cross, Stephen

  Jack tensed. His jaw went tight. “What about the Fence?”

  “It’s a great thing, Jack, really is. James tells me it’s your baby? You instigated it, planned it, pretty much single-handedly kept it up?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Amazing. Unbelievable.” Another pause. “It’s not good enough.”

  Jack felt his fists clench. It took all his control to not leap for Dalby.

  “That’s proven. Maybe it’s good enough for the odd zed, but not a horde. We saw what happened. We can’t let that happen again.”

  “I needed chains,” hissed Jack, casting a glance towards James, who didn’t meet his gaze. “There were weaknesses, I know that. I needed chains, more materials.”

  “Hey Jack, no one is blaming you. Mistakes happen. We have to learn and grow from them.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake, I knew what the issue was, I told James over and over again. James, tell him!”

  James shuffled uneasily in his seat. “Jack, I knew that… We talked about-”

  “Jack,” said Dalby in a raised voice. “Listen, Jack. What happened is not the issue now. It’s gone, it’s over. We need to talk about going forward, and what we’re going to do from here. How we are going to get you out of this mess.”

  “Mess?”

  Dalby leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk. Closer to Jack, he talked in a low voice. “You’re going to need help, Jack. There are many out there who lost people during the attack. They lost their husbands, wives, lovers, children, parents. Over a hundred dead. The first stage of loss is denial, then anger. And we’re quickly reaching the anger stage.”

  “What are you saying, Dalby?”

  “My men have been keeping their ears to the ground, we’ve been gauging the mood out there. There’s a feeling, a strong feeling, that the failure of the Fence was the reason the attack happened.”

  Silence in the room. Only his heart. Thump thump thump. He looked at James, but James didn’t look at him, his head was down. The kid by the door stared at Jack. Dalby with his half smile dressed in pity.

  “But I did everything I could to… There’s no way I could’ve realized… I needed help. I needed supplies, James, tell him!”

  Dalby shook his head slowly. “We know that, Jack, we all know that! You don’t think I can’t see that? Getting shit done is hard, and it’s only people with real courage who can stand up and get shit done. Everyone else needs to be looked after, and they need someone to blame. They’re blaming you, Jack, I know it’s wrong. Jesus, Jack, everything is wrong, you don’t think I can’t see that? They’re angry, they’re looking for someone to blame, and let’s face it Jack, according to James here, you’ve never made it easy for people to like you…”

  Jack shot an angry glare at James.

  Dalby continued, “You need our help. We need to work together to get you out of this.”

  The room swam. Jack's mind clouded, like he was under water, his thoughts floating in a mist. The only thing he could say, “What about Annie? Where’s Annie?”

  “She’s safe, Jack. We’ll bring you to her after this.”

  “How’s Ellie?” said Jack, meekly. How much had he hurt her? Was she ok? Was she angry with him?

  “We told you, she’s ok. You’ll get to see her, once we sort this out.”

  “What do you mean?” said Jack. “What do we need to do?”

  Dalby took in a breath. “For your own protection, Jack, we’re going to keep you with us.”

  A few seconds to process Dalby’s words. “Keep me… You mean I’m a prisoner? You mean you’re putting me in some sort of prison?” His voice rose a notch with each word.

  “Not a prisoner, Jack. Under guard. We’ll have some men posted to make sure no one gets to you.”

  “No one gets to me? What the fuck are you talking about? That’s it, I’ve had it with this shit!” Jack stood up. “James, you standing for this? What the fuck is happening here, this is your camp, this is our place, who are these fucks anyway? You can’t do this, where’s my daughter!” Jack moved to the door, but the kid at the door raised his gun in an instant and pointed it straight at Jack’s chest. He cocked the weapon. It was the first time Jack had heard a gun being cocked; it stopped him in his tracks. The kid at the other end of the rifle started at Jack, his breathing erratic. He wanted to pull the trigger.

  Dalby’s voice from behind. “Come on Jack. We can do this the easy way. We’ll get it sorted out in a few days. We’ll get talking to people, get them to understand that it wasn’t your fault. We’ll take over the maintenance and improvement of the Fence, get you involved, an expert consultant, if you like. We just need a few days, to keep you safe, to get the wheels greased.”

  Jack turned to face Dalby. He was standing, his arms held out, open, a smile on his face. “Come on Jack, let’s work together on this one.”

  Jack didn’t have a choice. “Let me see Annie. She’ll be worried. She gets worried when I’m not there.”

  “We’ll take you to her now,” said Dalby.

  “Can I stay with you, Daddy?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Jack, his arm around his daughter. They were sat together on a threadbare couch in an old caravan, nestled in the woods on the edge of the Holiday Park. The outside of the trailer was half cream, half brown, or green; it was hard to tell with the damp and mold that clung to its sides like a wet weekend in Blackpool. Jack imagined it had been there since the seventies, probably housing a grouchy groundskeeper that most people didn’t care for. The irony wasn’t lost on Jack.

  The inside was none the better; a tobacco-stained orange and brown pattern adorned the walls. A yellow-brown plastic wash basin and foot-pump operated sink was housed in a tattered almost-cardboard set of cheap plywood units, the many holes and frayed edges betraying the ravenous rats that had feasted on the fittings. The carpet was brown, and in places the pile had congealed into flat dreadlocks of dubious colors.

  It smelled of old men, cigarette smoke, and piss.

  Annie, however, didn’t seem to mind. A soldier called Chris had brought Jack’s daughter to the caravan an hour after Jack had arrived.

  “You could sleep in the bunk bed,” said Jack motioning to the rickety looking bunk that he guessed had once doubled as a couch, but had been hammered into place a long time ago. “Looks like fun doesn’t it?”

  “I think so…” she said.

  A face peered in through the window opposite the couch. It was Chris. A quick glance and then he continued walking around the caravan. He was there for Jack’s protection, according to Dalby. Although, the caravan was so far from the majority of the camp dwellers that Jack didn’t think anyone would come out this far. Especially after the attack; he had noticed the feeling of fear that hung over the previously carefree holiday camp on his drive to the caravan. Blinds had been drawn, doors closed; the few people who had been out and about had been in tight groups, their weapons on display. Furtive glances, like rabbits in a field.

  “Don’t worry Jack,” Dalby had said from the front of the jeep. “They can’t see you in the black, not here.”

  Jack had agreed to his protective custody on condition that his daughter stayed with him. Dalby had agreed, to Jack’s relief; he had no idea what he could have done if Dalby hadn’t ceded.

  “No one will find you here,” said Dalby as they had left the jeep and walked towards the caravan. Jack suspected he was right. He could barely remember seeing this caravan on his rounds, and as his position as Fence Walker, he had seen more of the campgrounds than most. “We’ll have a soldier on guard at all times, too. You’ll be very safe,” said Dalby.

  “For how long?”

  “I’ll only need a few days, There is to be another town hall meeting in two days. I’ll be making sure everything is sorted out. Don’t worry Jack,” Dalby had put his arm on his shoulder at that point. “Everything will be fine.”

  “What about the Fence? Have you fixed it?”

  “We’re w
orking on it,” said Dalby.

  “You’ll need my help.”

  “And we’ll come and get it. Tomorrow, I’ll come and get you.”

  That satisfied Jack. At least Dalby understood.

  Annie was opening and closing the cupboards. “Ugh… there’s all sorts of weird things in here Daddy.”

  Jack kneeled down beside her. Tiny black dots at the back of the cupboard revealed themselves as dead cockroaches on closer inspection. “Not too tidy is it?” said Jack with a sigh.

  “I liked the other place better. With Ellie and Mac. Can we go back there soon?”

  “In a few days. Just a few days, Annie.”

  Ash put her hands on Andy’s shoulders and began to knead his muscles gently. Instead of loosening, however, he felt his neck tightening. He gave an involuntary tic, and Ash’s hands paused.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, pulling her hands away.

  “I don’t know. I’m still worried about Harriet, Arthur, and Adam. Two days now, and no sign.”

  Ash sat on the couch next to Andy. “I was trying to help you relax.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” he reached a hand over and rested it on her knee. He knew he should hug her, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t know why. “It’s not your fault. I just think we should do something.”

  “What would you like to do?” she was speaking softly and slowly. Andy knew she didn’t agree with him. She was placating him, but that was fine.

  “We should search for them.”

  A moment’s pause engulfed the chalet. “Ok,” said Ash.

  Andy waited, but nothing more.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I said Ok.”

  “But you don’t agree? You don’t think we should look for them?”

  “Andy, we lost a lot of people in the attack. I think the count is over a hundred now.”

  “What does that mean? That we should give up and assume they’re gone? Adam was only eleven years old. A kid. We shouldn’t give up. They’re good people. They went through a lot to get here.”

  “We’ve all gone through a lot, I understand, but-”

  “You don’t understand though, do you? You haven’t been in the Wilds. You were here at the start of the Fall, and you’ve been here ever since. You haven’t run from house to house, terrified of every shadow, every crunch in the undergrowth. You go on the Runs, sure, but it's not the same. I was out there for months, with people who died because of my mistakes. I saw a man keep his fucking zombie wife chained up in a boat as if she was alive for fuck’s sake. You know what that shit does? You any idea what seeing that sort of shit does to your mind? What living like a fucking animal does, like a tiny bird in a world of fucking tigers? You wouldn’t understand though, because you never saw it, any of it. You were in the fucking holiday camp when it started, and you’ve always been here. And you always will be.”

  Andy stopped.

  He was standing up, towering over Ash. She didn’t look scared, it wasn’t her style. If he had any description for her mood, it would have been anger.

  Something in his mind was screaming at him. Apologise, say you’re sorry. Try to claw this back. But another part of him didn’t care. He was glad Ash was angry. Always so fucking sure of herself.

  Why was he so angry?

  “Finished?” said Ash softly.

  Andy didn’t reply. He turned and walked out of the chalet.

  In the darkness, Harriet’s mind crowded her, like it was drilling for oil into her brain, all dark and probing and what’s going on in here, and here are the worst thoughts I can give you, and not just once, but over and over again, each time getting more twisted, more deadly, further in until I get to the very essence of you and you implode with fear.

  She let out a small cry. It echoed in the darkness. Stone. They were in somewhere stone. Empty and damp. A drip somewhere. Of course, there would be a drip, there would always be a drip in a dark and dank and empty prison.

  “You ok?” whispered Arthur. She wondered briefly why he whispered. Who was listening to them?

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m ok.” Her whisper echoed like sandpaper.

  They had been in this room for hours, days, who knows? The soldiers had brought them here - a small building on the edge of the holiday park, a low brick housing, only a few yards square with a painted black thick door secured with a huge lock.

  If only Adam hadn’t said anything. What would have happened, would they have let them go? Maybe. Maybe not. It was what it was. Tied up and bound in darkness. Harriet, Arthur, and Adam.

  Dark thoughts amassed in her mind. All the decisions, the actions that had brought her here, to this dark room. Waiting for… For what? Death? What sort of things would a man like Dalby do?

  “I can hear something,” said Adam, his little voice nearly smothered by the darkness.

  Harriet cocked her head; he was right. Footsteps. Becoming louder and closer. More than one set, tumbling down what sounded like stairs.

  Her eyes snapped shut, but that had no effect against the rude and sudden onslaught of light. Automatically her bound hands tried to reach for her eyes to black out the bright light, burnt red by the shocked capillaries in her eyelids. Christ, turn off the fucking light.

  Boots again.

  They stopped. Harriet tried opening her eyes, just a fraction. A few figures in front of her.

  “Hello Harriet,” said Dalby. “It’s been a while.”

  The figures came into focus. Three men. Dalby was at the front. They all had rifles, machine guns, whatever.

  “Do you remember me? I’m sure you do?” he said.

  Of course she did.

  “You too, Arthur. You look a little thinner than you did when you punched me and flung me from the jeep. Into a garage full of zeds. A death sentence for most, don’t you think?” he stepped towards Arthur. “Yes, much thinner. More of an even match now.”

  A featureless concrete room. Pipes lining the ceiling. More pipes crawling down the wall like creepers. A door on the opposite wall, closed and leading to who-knows-where. Two powerful halogen lights in the corners of the room. Dense and long shadows slunk around the floor and walls as Dalby and his men moved.

  Adam was tied against the wall opposite, and Arthur to the wall to her right. The wall to the left had an open door.

  “And you, little Adam,” said Dalby. “You’ve done well, surviving this long. You are the most innocent in this charade, but then you are an accessory, and you are the son of Sergeant Allen.”

  Dalby returned his attention to Harriet. “What did you lose?”

  What was he talking about? Her mind was still stuck in the dark. Normal conversation was beyond her for the moment. “What?”

  “What did you lose, when this all went down? The Fall, what did you lose? What keeps you up at night, with tears, with bittersweet memories? What is it from the past that reaches for you, day after day?”

  Something for her mind to focus on. The life before. The comforts. She was ashamed to realize it was the comforts she missed. She had had no boyfriend, no children. There had only been the comforts. She missed her parents, of course she did. She had cried many a night for her mum. She had been old and alone, and Harriet had been on her way to see her when the Fall had hit. The last she had spoken to her had been a rushed and panicked conversation - most of the panic on her mum’s side, of course, Harriet of pre-Fall had been young and naive and of the belief that nothing in the world could hurt her - and now her mum was gone. Her dad had died long ago. So what else was there? The comforts were what she still missed. Warm showers. A glass of wine. Warmth. Good food. Turning on a tap. Ice cream of an evening while watching Netflix. Was that shallow? Was she that vapid?

  She looked at Adam, his eyes open wide in fear, and she felt the accompanying pain and shift in her heart. This was more than she had felt before, about anyone. She loved him like he was hers. She wanted to take his pain, to wrap him up in the comfort that she had known and longed for. And
she realized there was more to life now than there was before, something that gave her meaning. It was Adam, it was Arthur, their small unit. The love they had for each other.

  She preferred life now.

  It felt like a betrayal of everything and everyone she had known before. It felt like a betrayal of the very civilization of humanity. But it was the truth. She had purpose. She meant something more than a young woman in an office getting drunk.

  “We’re the same,” said a voice from beyond her mind.

  “What?”

  Dalby had crouched down, his face only a few feet away from her. Harsh shadows from the bright lights cut across half of his face. Lights. Electricity. They had electricity.

  “You are the same as me,” said Dalby, half a smile visible on his half face.

  “Let us go,” she said. “I’d let you go. If we’re the same, then let us go.”

  “I can see it in your eyes. Where have you been the past few seconds? You’ve been thinking about what you have and what you did have, and I guess that you surprise yourself, realizing that the world before comes up short? Am I right? I guess I am because I’m the same. There are more of us than you think. Oh, we all hanker for the old days in public, our public faces grimacing at the lack of a cozy sofa and boil in the bag noodles. But in private, how many people do you think are better off? How many people prefer this world? The last world wasn’t that great for a lot of people, you know. Disenfranchised, lost, alone, the world was littered with them. And those lost, who didn’t even know they were lost…” Dalby paused and stared into her eyes. She felt uncomfortable, exposed, naked. She turned away.

  “There we go,” said Dalby. “Not so hard to admit is it? What are you trying to hide, what are you trying to prove?”

  Whimpering began up from the wall opposite. It was Adam. He was looking at her, his wide eyes dripping with tears, his mouth hanging open, his body shuddering gently in the sobs. He was strong for his age, but there was only so much a young mind could take.

  “I have a problem,” said Dalby.

  “Leave her alone damn you! It was me that hit you. It was me that threw you from the truck.” Arthur. He strained under this binds, his powerful neck muscles pulling tight, his tendons sticking out like pillars. Like a horse ready to bolt, she thought.