Dalby paused. Ellie liked how he did this; he would hesitate just long enough to make the other person feel uncomfortable, as if they had to speak, and as they did, he would talk over them, making them feel as if they had done something wrong.
“Well I-” said Chris.
Dalby held up his hand to silence Chris. Worked like clockwork.
“I have a suspicion, Chris, that we have an underground in Unity. A number of people who are against what we stand for, which is togetherness and hope. For some reason, they don’t want to see us succeed. Do you understand?”
Chris paused for a moment, then said, “Sir. Yes, sir.”
“Good. We have to stop these things immediately before they take root. I want you to help us, so I’m going to tell you what I believe is happening.
“I think, Lieutenant, that Sergeant Allen has somehow infiltrated this base and turned a subset of weaker minded individuals against everyone here. He wants to take over, and be damned whoever stands against him, be they men, women, or even the children… We already know that Jack was instrumental in this. We have evidence that suggests he broke the Fence on purpose for an attack to happen. Sergeant Allen was then to be the one to save the camp and take it over for his own nefarious plans. It was just luck that brought us by instead.
“Allen has also recruited others to his cause. Andy and Ash are two. Sarah was one. There will be others. You must find them. Have I made myself clear?”
Chris nodded. “Like crystal, sir.”
“Good. I want you to make sure that Unity knows who its enemies are. You will make sure this information gets out. And one more thing, there will be a curfew. No one is to be out of their chalet in the hours of darkness. Anyone found to be so will be considered hostile and arrested.”
Dalby stood up. Chris mirrored and stood up himself.
“I’m counting on you, Lieutenant. We must crush this underground.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good. I expect fast results. Dismissed.”
Chris clicked his heels, turned and left, not before he managed a quick glance at Ellie.
The soldiers kicked in the chalet door, the lock splintering and taking half the door frame with it.
“Anyone in here, come out with your hands up!” shouted Private Roman.
No response.
“Ok, let’s go!” shouted Roman, and the four men filed into the chalet, their heavy boots echoing in the still morning air. No shots were fired, no sounds of struggle emanated from the chalet. A few minutes later and the four men left through the door they had entered. They looked wired, thought Crowe from his hiding place a hundred yards away, they had expected action. They had expected to find him in there.
Satisfied the soldiers were heading back to their base, Crowe ducked back deep into the undergrowth. A large bush with a tiny entrance, no doubt made by badgers or foxes, led into a covered clearing. He was surrounded by nettles and thick hedgerow. He should be safe unless they got the dogs out. Lucky there were no dogs to get out.
His call was right. Good to know the few weeks spent in ‘Unity,’ or whatever the fuck it was called hadn’t made him rusty. He’d been getting supplies from the distribution station after the latest Run had come in when he’d heard the talk; of the head Runner being shot, another Runner being captured. An underground. A curfew. Another underground agent being arrested - was that Sarah?
Crowe figured it was time to get out. Of the chalet at least. So he had got back to the chalet as quickly as he could, picked up his always packed bag, and found a good place to hide. Upon a small rise, in the neglected flora, he had a view of the chalet.
They had arrived twenty minutes later.
He wondered if Sarah had got out.
What to do now?
The sensible option would be to get the fuck out of dodge. Get back to Allen (and hopefully Sarah), and get away from this shit show.
Something was holding him back though. He needed to find out was going on. Looks like some of that decency that Sarah kept trying to infect him with had rubbed off.
“Bollocks,” he said. He settled down in the undergrowth, tried to get some sleep. It would be a long night when it came.
Jack had run west; that was towards the boot of Cornwall, they would be less likely to run into people that way, he figured. They had fled all through the night, him mainly carrying Annie. She was heavy, but he had managed it. Up and down the hills; his thighs had pumped, and his back had complained, but he had pushed on. He had lost his belly a long time ago. He was thin, defined. His legs where now his best feature, he could walk for hours; for days if he had to.
It was time to rest now though, and the small farmhouse would do. It was in the middle of nowhere. Hell, everything was in the middle of nowhere these days. Jack hadn’t been followed, that much he was sure of. He had passed over too many high and open fields for no one to give themselves away, especially those dumb fuck soldiers anyway. Soldiers my arse. Maybe a handful of them were, but most were just kids, old loners. People who had survived the Fall by luck as much as anything.
“Are we going to rest in that house, Daddy?”
“We are, darling. We’re going to have a sit-down, maybe a nice of cup of tea.”
“Have we got any tea?”
“No,” said Jack. “I would guess there’s some in that farmhouse though.” They hadn’t much of anything. They had run without a bag. No food, no weapon. Just their clothes. He felt sorry for Ash and Andy; he wondered if they were both dead. It was their choice though to come and ‘rescue’ him. Who was to say they were right. Maybe Dalby didn’t want to kill him, maybe he had just been after those two. It didn’t matter. Dalby would want him dead now, that’s for sure.
The farmhouse was set at the bottom of a shallow valley. A small and chaotic dry stone wall encircled the small building. Two up, two down, guessed Jack. Some old farmer who had three sheep, a cow, and a problem with whiskey. There was one outhouse, a small stone building with no door and even less of a roof.
Jack set Annie down. “Hold my hand,” he said. They approached slowly. He had picked up a large thick branch a few hours ago; it would do if any of those undead bastards appeared.
“Wait here,” said Jack as they reached the front wall.
“I want to come with you.”
“I’ll be quick. Just going to check downstairs, make sure there’s no… nothing to worry about in there.” He smiled at Annie. She half-smiled back, uncertainty clouding her face.
He stepped up the path to the front door. Black and half open. He pushed it the rest of the way and peered inside. A dark corridor with two entrances to the left and to the right, a staircase, and light shining in from the kitchen at the back. He glanced back at Annie and forced himself to smile. He stepped into the house.
His feet creaked on a floorboard. He paused and listened. Nothing.
The door to the left opened silently. A dining room, all in order. The table covered in dust. A sideboard with old ornaments and black and white pictures. He crossed the corridor and pushed open the other door.
Jack took a sharp intake of breath and let out a small cry. He snapped his hand to his mouth, covering it in spittle as he breathed fast, his heart out of control.
A dry carcass sat on a threadbare single seater couch. A shotgun was in its mouth, and a dry and withered hand was wrapped around the barrel. The other hand was on the stock, a bony finger through the trigger guard. The back of the wall was decorated with a thick dark splatter.
“Daddy,” said Annie from outside.
“It’s ok,” said Jack. “Just stay there.”
Jack took a few moments to get himself together. It was just him and Annie now. No one else. It was up to him. He breathed deeply. “Come on pal, he’s dead. He’s dead already.”
Jack, with heavy steps, moved into the kitchen. Bright; the cheap and old white units happily reflecting the sunlight. Dirty dishes covered in mold filled the sink. A table in the middle of the room
with an empty teacup and an old radio. An open fridge, empty except for two uncertain black and brown mounds of something.
He pushed the fridge door closed, then walked out the back door. A small garden enclosed by the rest of the wall; the washing line was up, and dirty linen flapped in the gentle wind. He circled the house back to the front.
“Ok Annie, come and wait in the hall.” She came and stood with him at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m just going to check upstairs ok? Do not go in that room,” he said, pointing to the lounge.
“Why?”
“Just don’t. It doesn’t smell good. Just trust me.”
Annie eyed the door. “Ok,” she said.
Jack moved up the stairs slowly. It took him five minutes to check through the two bedrooms and bathroom. Nothing out of place. Rooms frozen in time, forgotten and left to decay. Dust danced in rays of sunlight. Floorboards creaked. No more dead bodies though. No zombies. It would do.
“Annie, come up here,” he said.
Annie climbed the stairs.
“We’re going to have a rest, ok?” She followed him into the master bedroom. It smelt like his grandparent’s house, old and musty. The smell of decades piled up on top of each other.
Jack and Annie lay on the sheets and slept.
When Jack woke, long shadows were crawling across the floor. He looked at his watch, it was eight in the evening. Annie stirred next to him.
“I’m hungry,” she said, still half asleep.
They hadn’t eaten for nearly 24 hours.
“Annie,” whispered Jack. “Stay here, I’m going to get something to eat.”
“Ok,” she mumbled.
Jack got up and went downstairs. In the low evening light, the house took on a sinister bent. Shadows and dark crevices stared menacingly. The floorboards of the house creaked in some terrible foreign language as if talking to each other: here he comes, this way, watch him.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs and stared at the closed lounge door. He pushed the door slowly, his heart thumping. He stopped.
Just me and Annie now. No one to help us.
He opened the door fully. The body still lay on the couch. Flies buzzed in the room. He stared at the empty husk, dried and withered, brown and reduced to bone in parts, its clothes sagging. Skeleton hands clasped the gun. He was dead alright.
Jack fixed on the gun. He needed a weapon, and a shotgun would do. If not even to shoot with, it would make a good club.
He edged towards the body, his feet shuffling rather than stepping. His hand moved out slowly, his muscles contracting in the opposite direction telling him to run, you don’t want to do this, it might be alive, you know, undead alive.
He grabbed the gun and pulled it towards himself. The hands of the corpse collapsed and lay across the hollow torso as if placed by an undertaker; all perfect and laying across the chest, God be with you.
Jack was shaking. “Fuck’s sake,” he whispered to himself.
He had fired a few shotguns on stag dos, back in the day. He had been a reasonable shot, his score always in the middle-high range. He broke the barrel of the gun and looked down the chamber. There was one unspent cartridge. Maybe there were more in the house somewhere.
His tummy rumbled to remind of him of his primary mission: food for himself and his daughter. The people who had come into the camp from the Wilds had talked of their food forages, of catching birds and hunting rabbits. Another tried method was raiding empty homes and looking for cans of food; the most popular staples being sweetcorn, tomatoes, tuna, baked beans, hotdogs. That was the kind of food foraging Jack was hoping for now.
He entered the kitchen and started going through the cupboards. The third cupboard came good: several cans of baked beans, kidney beans, and some dubious looking plastic packets containing long overdue meats. He looked at the best before dates on the cans; there was still a good year left on the baked beans and two years on the kidney beans. A quick search through the drawers brought up a can opener.
This living in the Wilds wasn’t so hard, he smiled to himself.
He went back upstairs. Annie wasn’t in the bed.
“Annie?” he whisper-shouted. “Annie?” He looked under the bed and in the cupboard thinking she might be playing some silly prank on him, but nothing.
A sound emanated from a nearby room. A strange, haunting sound, and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was; the placing of guitar strings, their sweet resonance hanging in the air.
Jack followed the sound to the other bedroom. Annie sat in a chair with an old guitar in her lap. She smiled at Jack. “Look what I found Daddy. Is it ok?”
Jack smiled. ”It’s ok.”
“Do you want to play something?”
Before the Fall, Jack would retreat to his music room; a small box room that contained his amplifier, his marshall valve stack amplifier, his Gibson Les Paul (pride and joy), along with his Charvel Surfcaster and Squire Stratocaster. On one wall was a few newspaper cuttings; pictures of him in his younger days, the long hair of rebellion and rock-uniform ripped denim jeans. Reviews of his band’s performances: this guitar player was going places; the group are a tight unit bound for bigger things; one to watch.
Those watching would have got bored, for nothing happened, of course. The good stuff rarely did. His rock dreams had died, and he got the regular job in an office, wife, and daughter. Pretty damn good in the scheme of things, he had been grateful. And watching Annie sitting on the chair with the guitar in her hand, asking him to play, he realized that his little audience of one was always better than any community hall or pub he had filled in his previous life.
“What do you want me to play?” he said.
Annie smiled, her eyes rising to the ceiling as she searched her brain for her favorite song. “Mmmm, the Guns N Roses one.”
Sweet Child O’ Mine. One of Jack’s favorites, one of Annie’s. He put down the tins of food and held out his hand. “Come on then, pass it here.”
Annie gave Jack the guitar and sat cross-legged in front of the chair. Jack settled in and tucked the guitar under his arm. It felt good, he felt good. Jack strummed the strings gently; it was out of tune. “Give me a minute,” he said as he turned it up. Jack began to play a few chords; it had been a long time, and the strings hurt his fingers, his callouses long gone. He would play through the pain though; he had a very eager and demanding audience.
He ran through a clumsy intro, missing a few notes, then eased into the first verse.
The words, the chord progression, everything fell to him like an opened casket; always there, just waiting to be picked up and used again. He met Annie’s eyes, and she smiled, singing along as they reached the chorus. He hadn’t seen her look like this for a long time. And he hadn’t felt like this in a long time.
To hell with the zombies, he thought, as he upped the volume and belted out another chorus.
It was going to be a beautiful day. Lazy white clouds crawled across the sky, thin and wispy and never threatening the bright sun. Jack looked over the small garden, encased by the rickety stone wall, tumbled and thin in places, spotted with bursts of low vegetation. A lizard skirted into a dark hole as Jack walked to the back wall.
A thin low valley stretched about half a mile before being swallowed by the hills. A little stream ran down the length of the valley, passing the house and garden to the left.
Freshwater. Plenty of rabbits to catch. Maybe a good place to stay.
Jack shook his head; when was the last time he had caught a fucking rabbit? He didn’t know the first thing about catching rabbits. He didn’t know the first thing about getting his own food, about starting a fire. What happened when the winter came? Autumn, even; this was England, in a few weeks the nights would be unbearably cold.
A slight hand of panic touched his spine. He swallowed dry, his stomach buzzing. It was just him and Annie. They were truly alone, and Jack didn’t know the first fucking thing about staying alive in the Wilds.
Annie ran out into the garden, she smiled at him as she ran past, to the back of the wall. She crouched down and began looking at the flowers growing there. Why wasn’t she as scared as him? The things that had happened to her. His mind flashed back to the night her Mummy had died. The thin winding country roads, the crashed van. Jack had to get out and check everything was alright. Stupid. If he had just stayed in the car, and driven on, then everyone would be here and together, and none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t have gone batshit crazy. At least he knew he was crazy. Or was he? Maybe everyone else was crazy.
“Annie, come back here. Away from the wall.”
“Why, Daddy?” she said looking up.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice trailing off. Why had he checked the van? Some misplaced sense of what he was supposed to do? To impress his wife, show her he was the big man, not scared.
Well, darling, here I am. Terrified, not able to look after myself, never mind our daughter.
“Come on Annie, get back from the wall.”
Annie stood up and looked over the wall into the fields beyond. “There’s nothing there.”
She was right. You could see for miles. Nothing was there.
“Ok,” he said.
He walked back into the kitchen and searched for something to hold water in. That made sense didn’t it? Get water from the stream, store it. There was no fridge though, would the water go off, or stagnant or something? What happens to water if you keep it for a long while? Why did he not know the answers to such simple questions? Didn’t people know this sort of stuff, was it just him? Must be. Once an idiot, always a fucking idiot. Everyone knows how to store water. How to light a fire. How to find fucking food. How to look after their daughters. How to kill zombies. Just Jack, just Jack doesn’t know. Fucking idiot. Lost without google, like a cat with no claws. How do I keep warm? How do I keep Annie warm? How do I keep her safe?
Her Father, unable to look after her.
The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker Page 24