The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker

by Cross, Stephen

  Feet shuffled in the austere room.

  Dalby kept his eyes fixed on Harriet. “I was one of those people. One of the ones who have so much more now. I have an army now. And the thing about leadership is that you have to be strong. It’s a knife-edge. The second you show any weakness, that’s when you lose it.

  “That was my problem before, I was unable to function within the constraints put around me. I’m old school, I see that now. I need the freedom to operate, to move, to grow, to develop. Do you understand?”

  Harriet shook her head. Her chest was tightening. A change was taking place in the room. More feet movements. The soldiers standing behind Dalby glanced at each other.

  Dalby stood up and ran his hands through his thick blond hair. “Don’t worry Harriet. I said we are the same type of person. That affords you some protection.” He turned to Arthur. “This one, on the other hand. You have no love for today. No love for the now. You are still living in the past with memories… You had a family I guess?”

  Arthur said nothing, he didn't move. He stared.

  “No matter. It doesn’t matter.” Dalby moved beside Arthur and got down on his knees beside the large man. He put his arm around Arthur’s neck and locked it tightly with his arm. His mouth was up against Arthur’s ear. He tightened his grip.

  Arthur struggled, hard and fast. His feet raised, and he shook from left to right. Dalby’s head banged against the wall with an audible clunk.

  “Gun on the boy, Chris. Gun on the boy!” shouted Dalby.

  One of the soldiers, a young man with a thin beard, swung his rifle to point at Adam.

  “Stop struggling,” said Dalby.

  Arthur’s eyes, bulging and white, stared at Adam. His face contorted into a grimace, the shape of immense internal pain. He released the stronghold on his muscles, and his body relaxed into Dalby’s grip.

  “That’s right, Arthur. There is a time to stop fighting, and this is it.”

  Dalby pulled his arm tight around Arthur’s neck, his face turning red with the exertion.

  “Stop it! Leave him!” shouted Harriet, her voice taking form without any guidance from her brain. An expulsion, natural like pulling her hand form a fire. “Leave him…” the last words trickled out, her energy gone. Dalby wasn’t going to stop.

  Her sobs echoed in the room. The footsteps, why was there always footsteps? Gurgling sounds from Arthur. Pathetic and helpless gurgling sounds from the strong man who had been her oak for so long, who had saved her and Adam, who she had loved.

  “Arthur…” she said.

  Dalby yanked and tugged. “Look at him, Adam. Look at this man dying. This is what death really looks like. This is what life is!”

  “Shut up!” shouted Harriet. Adam knew what death looked like. He had seen his mother killed. He didn’t need more.

  “This is what I did to your dad, Adam. This is what I did to Sergeant Allen. I strangled the life from his little scrawny chicken neck.”

  A little sound began in Adam’s throat and grew into a scream, a terrible howling scream. Harriet realized her own voice was joining the sounds.

  “He’s lying, Adam,” shouted Harriet, desperately, “he’s lying!”

  “I’m not, Adam, I’m not!”

  Arthur spat out white phlegm and blood. Dripped down his chin. His eyes popping, turning red. Staring at the ceiling. Harriet longed for the darkness again.

  Arthur struggled to move his eyes until he met Harriet’s. He tried to move his mouth, beyond the spitting gurgling hole it had become. Was he trying to smile? Harriet wanted to think so, needed to think so.

  His body went limp.

  Dalby released his grip. He sat back against the wall and breathed heavily, an exhausted smile on his face, like a man who had just won a marathon.

  “How about that?” he said through panting breaths.

  Harriet willed her arms to reach for Adam. His little face red, scrunched up in pain and agony. Too much for the boy, far too much.

  At some point, Dalby and the soldiers left. Dalby said something, but Harriet wasn’t sure what.

  They left the lights on.

  Chapter 16

  Andy was in the corner of the bar with a bottle of beer, his fifth. He was getting drunk, and he was going to do it correctly. It had been a good while since he had been drunk.

  The dim lamplight of the bar, the quiet chatter punctuated by a burst of laughter; it felt homely, it felt safe. He took another sip of his beer and nodded to Charlie, one of the Fishers, but didn’t make any move to join Charlie. He felt like being on his own.

  He thought of Ash, why did he shout at her? Why did he lose his temper? She had been good to him, she hadn’t deserved that explosion. Probably unprocessed feelings of some sort floating around in his brain. Whatever, at the moment he didn’t give a fuck. His head was spinning slowly. He would apologize tomorrow, maybe she’d forgive him.

  He took out the picture of his wife. Pregnant. Taken two weeks before she died in the car crash. At least she had been saved from the ravages of the Fall.

  Charlie patted him on the back. “Hey Andy, how’s you? Where’s Ash tonight?”

  Andy shrugged. “At home.”

  “She not feeling well?”

  Charlie never was the best at picking up the subtle signals of conversation. Unless Andy told him straight that he wanted to be alone, he wouldn’t get it. Andy couldn’t be bothered with the fuss of offending him.

  “She’s fine. It’s me. I’m being a bit of a grump.”

  “You have a fall out?”

  “Yep.”

  “What about mate?”

  “Nothing to worry yourself about, Charlie. Just being a bit of an idiot. You know, the usual.”

  Charlie laughed. “I know that alright. Hey, come and join us, Dean and Warren are over here.”

  Andy walked over to the table.

  “Hey, it’s Andy,” said Dean, one of the Runners. He had been out with Andy many a time. Same age as Andy, they got on well.

  “Hey Dean, Warren.”

  Warren nodded. Another Runner, older. An old man tired of it all.

  “What you up to? Where’s Ash?” said Dean.

  “We’ve had a bit of a fallout.”

  “Your fault?” said Warren.

  “Can’t hide much from you, can I?” said Andy, allowing himself the first smile of the evening.

  They talked for a while. They joked. They reminisced. The gentle hum of conversation sinking nicely into the wooden walls. The bar had been decorated in faux Tudor, probably fashionable in the nineties. Little did the designer know that when the apocalypse came to their old-fashioned design, it would lend itself nicely to the medieval lamp light and quiet banter.

  “I think this Dalby is all good,” said Charlie. “I mean, he saved our bacon, didn’t he? We was on the ropes.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Warren.

  “How so?” said Andy.

  “Rollin’ in here like that. Very convenient. Seems he’s taking over, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dean. “Seems like he’s getting things on the level. Doing what the army should be doing.”

  “Half of them lot aren’t even army though,” said Warren. “Some right shady characters.”

  “There’s a lot of shady folk out in the Wilds that look shady but aren’t, if you get me,” said Andy.

  “You for one?” said Dean, smiling.

  “No, I’m one of the ones you shouldn’t have let in…”

  They laughed.

  “Serious though,” said Charlie. “I’ve heard they’re getting the electricity back on the go. They have fella’s working on it, used to be electrical engineers or something. You know, real boffins. Just think about it, electricity again.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Warren. “Anyhow, I quite like this place as it is.”

  “Bet you’d like to get your phone charged though,” said Charlie, “see them pictures of your grandkids a
gain?”

  “We don’t all want to remember,” said Dean, glancing to Warren. “My phone is gone. I don’t want to see what’s on there. Not anymore.”

  “You chucked your phone?” said Andy. There were two types of people it seemed; those who didn’t want to see anything of the past and had thrown out all their phones, computers, tablets, and those who clung to them like life itself, waiting for the day they could relight the faces of their loved ones.

  Andy had chucked his.

  “Chucked it months ago,” said Dean. “Don’t want to be seeing all that anymore.”

  An uneasy silence sat on the table. The men were close, they all knew when the other was lost in thought.

  “Think of it, though,” said Charlie. “Get some music on the go again. We won’t have to listen to Warren banging on anymore.”

  The joke wasn’t funny, but it was enough. They laughed.

  “The Fence is what I’m thinking of,” said Warren. “They get that Fence fixed, properly, this time, and maybe I’ll have second thoughts about this Dalby.”

  “Well I hear they’re working on that too,” said Charlie.

  “You hear a lot,” said Dean. “You banging this Dalby fella?”

  More laughter.

  The night moved on. Andy was the first to leave.

  “I’ll be on the run tomorrow, see you then fellas.”

  “Hope you get it worked out with Ash,” said Dean.

  Andy didn’t want to go home, not yet. A brisk walk in the night air, clear his head before he went back. He was still buzzing from the beers, apt to say something he might regret if he tried to make it up with Ash. Besides, it was a warm night, good for a walk; and it was quiet. Not many were out at night recently, not after the attack.

  Andy walked along one of the main roads in the camp. It tracked the beach with one line of chalets before the sand dunes.

  A soldier walked passed. Young fella, shaved head. Why would he go to the trouble to shave his head? Silly thoughts, Andy. Drunk thoughts. Who gives a fuck what he does with his hair.

  The soldier nodded at Andy, who nodded back.

  He kept walking. An owl hooted in the distance, repeating every minute or two. He didn’t know what sort of owl it was, he wished he did. He wished he could identify the plants, the trees, the animals. But even with society gone, humanity was still building walls between itself and the natural world outside. Vying for electricity. Vying for safety that maybe didn’t exist. Denying their part in the world.

  He was at the end of the road. A few chalets either side of him and the way turned into a dirt track that led to the woods that bounded the west side of the holiday camp. It would be foolhardy to walk into the woods, especially given the Fence hadn’t been fixed yet.

  So he kept walking.

  The trees enveloped him, and he was soon surrounded by the darkness of the woods. The fresh smell of cedar and pine, dampened with rainwater, filled his nostrils. The cool of the woods shuddered around him. Shapes formed in the darkness. The owl again - loud and near and clear. What if the owls were bigger now, what if all the animals bigger? What if the owls were huge, like old dinosaurs, and it was watching him now, its big bright eyes like moons following his every move.

  A branch cracked under his foot. He jumped. He looked behind him, the lights of the park seemed far away.

  “Don’t be so fucking stupid,” said Andy under his breath. Drunken bravado filled his heart, and he forced himself to take another step, and another. “Just having a walk.”

  Except monsters were real now. There were things in the woods that would kill him, that would eat him whole and rip his flesh out. Tear his throat. Crush his skull and sink its bony fingers into his brain.

  “Fuck’s sake,” said Andy, turning round to head back to the holiday park.

  Then he stopped.

  To his right, further into the darkness of the woods, away from the path, was a dim light. There were no chalets out here.

  “Fuck it,” he slurred and stepped off the path. His feet sank into pine-covered floors. The odd branch snap. A half trip over a clump of grass or an errant branch. Rustling around him. Maybe animals, maybe zombies.

  He didn’t even have a weapon.

  Half-way between the path and the light; the light now taking on the familiar shape of a square. A window.

  He jogged, gently stepping through the dark. He caught himself against a tree as his foot nicked a branch. A loud crack as he kicked free.

  He reached the edge of the tree-line before the woods opened into a grass-covered clearing. He crouched under vegetation and squinted. In the middle of the clearing, the bright moon bathed a caravan with a gentle blue light.

  A soldier was standing by the corner of the caravan, looking in Andy’s direction. Andy's heart hammered. He was scared. The soldier was an enemy; Andy shouldn’t be here, he didn’t know why, but he felt it. This place was wrong. It was hidden, it was in the middle of the woods, and no one came here. The weathered caravan was rotten and covered in damp; it was like an old hermit, dreadlocks and banging on bongos, skinny but amazing at yoga. A hippy caravan.

  Andy smirked to himself, in spite of his fear.

  The soldier took a step away from the caravan, towards Andy’s hiding place. Andy froze. He must have heard him crashing through the undergrowth like the elephant he was.

  The soldier stared for what seemed an age. Then he turned and walked back to the caravan. He banged on the window; a gaping yellow mouth, spilling light onto the clearing.

  A figure appeared at the window.

  “Close the curtain,” said the soldier.

  The figure pulled the curtains shut, but not before Andy had taken a good look. It was someone he knew. Long hair, long beard, an unwashed hippy in the hippy caravan.

  It was Jack.

  Andy moved delicately back into the woods. When sure he was out of earshot of the clearing, he burst into a run.

  Eddy squirmed in Ellie’s arms. He was so restless these days. Getting older. Always wanting attention, to be fed, to be cuddled, to crawl. Exhausting at times. So she was grateful when the scouse girl, Amy, suggested she take him to the nursery with her for a few hours.

  “He can have a play with the other kids,” said Amy, “It’s good for mam to have a rest every now and again. The Major wants to have lots of social care like this. Things’ll get better.”

  Ellie handed over Eddy and was left alone in the office; James’s office. Except now it seemed that the Major used it most. She hadn’t seen James around much, and when she did, he was usually standing behind the Major with a glum look on his face. Some people can’t handle that someone else is doing a better job, guessed Ellie.

  The door opened, and the Major walked in; more swirled in. He was like a force of nature, like a tornado had entered the room. In a blur, he was sitting at the desk opposite Ellie. His eyes fixed on her as he shouted a command to someone by the door, “Tell him to find someone who can fix it before lunchtime. It can be done.”

  Ellie heard a brisk ‘Yes sir’ from behind, and the stomp of boots down the corridor.

  Major Dalby sat back in the chair. His hair was what always drew Ellie’s eyes. Blond. Pure blond like the sun, or the snow, or both, like the mountains where she used to ski with her husband. The Major was also remarkably clean; that was noticeable these days. Most people in the camp looked after themselves to a degree, but still carried some sign they were living in an apocalyptic future; their hair was a day or two overdue a wash; their stubble was a little too long; there were a few stains on their shirts; their jeans were frayed around the knee or hems; their breath was a bit too raw. Not Dalby though. Immaculate, every day.

  He smiled. It was a young and fresh smile. Dalby must have been the same age as her, being late twenties. No wonder James was jealous.

  “Ellie,” said Dalby “Sorry it’s taken me a day or two to get round to see you. Things have been busy, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

  Ellie s
miled. “That’s fine, Major.”

  “Call me Oliver.”

  “I don’t know if that would feel right…”

  “Ok,” he held his hands out, acquiescing to her uncertainty. “Call me Major. Like everyone else.”

  A pause. Dalby looked at Ellie. She tried to hold his gaze but after a few seconds lowered her eyes. Was she blushing? For God's sake Ellie, stop blushing.

  “You’ll be glad to know that Jack won’t be able to hurt you again,” said Dalby.

  “Oh, he didn’t hurt me, he was just trying-”

  Dalby held up his hand, and she stopped talking. “You don’t have to explain or apologize. You were unconscious when we found you, Ellie. Even if it was an accident, it’s obvious you were in danger.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way. Jack may not have meant to hurt her, but he did.

  “People like Jack, they aren’t in control of their emotions. Unable to regulate themselves. Especially now in this day and age, they feel that given there are no longer any of the checks and balances that keep a society together, they have a right to act as they choose, to behave as they like. To take what they want…”

  Dalby let his words hang in the air. Ellie thought about them. How did she know that Jack hadn’t meant to hurt her? Her memory was hazy. Jack was crazy; he had to be, hadn’t he? That way he had acted. It was only because of Mac she had stayed. Mac, who had kept her safe, who had loved her like a daughter and protected her ever since the beginning of the Fall. Mac who was now dead.

  A harsh warmth spread through her body. Her eyes welled up; a most delicate and powerful sadness enveloped her.

  “It’s ok, Ellie, it’s ok to cry. We have all lost.”

  “Mac… He looked after us so well, he did everything for us. When we were in the Wilds, he took care of little Eddy and me. He’s dead now, all because of Jack. Jack should have gone to help him, but he stopped me! He stopped me from saving him! I could have done it. I could have killed them, there was only a few. I’ve killed more than that. Jack’s scared of them, you know? He hates them. Every time he sees them he cowers like a mouse, he’s pathetic.” Ellie’s voice was rising. Heat had spread to her face. She spat out her words. “That little squirmy bastard is the reason Mac is gone.”