The second attacker was in better shape. Three of its fingers were twisted, but that appeared to be the full extent of its maladies, other than the fact it was dead. It ran at him, arms flailing. Mike ducked down low and the creature stumbled against the gate. He wasted no time and forced the screwdriver firmly up through the base of the skull. Once motion ceased, he withdrew it, wiped it off and placed it back in his belt. He then returned to the first beast, placed his boot on its chest and pulled at the hatchet with all his might. It succumbed with a sickening squelch.
He pulled both bodies to the side and opened the gate. The ambulance carefully moved through and Mike firmly bolted the steel barrier into place once more. He climbed back into the cab of the ambulance. “Okay, we need to carry straight on this track for a while,” he said without missing a beat.
He looked back at Emma. She glared at him but said nothing and turned around to rejoin Jake and Sammy.
CHAPTER TEN
They drove along the dirt track in silence. Lucy looked into the mirror just as the gate disappeared from view. There were no more pursuers to be seen and she let out a small breath of relief.
The track was dry and bumpy, but it was nothing the ambulance or Lucy couldn’t handle. The sun was high in the sky, and the furrowed field looked like it was a million miles away from the battleground they had just driven through. Mike looked back into the ambulance to see Emma and Samantha still clutching the children, a little more relaxed now.
Mike thought back to how he and Emma used to bring their bikes up here in the summer holidays. They’d pack a picnic and escape the reality of feeling like outsiders in their own family. These fields had once been a refuge for the young siblings, and now they were again. Mike was snapped out of his reminiscing by the ambulance coming to an abrupt halt. The track had come to an end.
“Where now?” demanded Lucy. What used to be a gate was now a hedge. Mike jumped down from the ambulance and went to look. Drainage channels had been dug on the other side of the field. “Well?” said Lucy as he climbed back in.
“It looks like they’ve changed the layout since we were last here.”
“When was that?”
He winced a little as he answered. “Six or seven years ago.”
Lucy scowled at him. “So what now?”
“Well, it’s not ideal. But if we backtrack to the last field, there’s another trail that reaches the farm buildings. If we put our foot down, hopefully we can get through to the main road before anyone has time to react.” He looked across at Lucy, waiting for her to say something, but she just crunched the gear stick into reverse, turned the wheel and moved off.
Rather than heading north, they were going west, which they both found frustrating. The passengers in the back were blissfully unaware of what was going on up front, which Mike thought was probably just as well. One woman being pissed off with him was more than enough for now.
“Okay, Doc, slow down a bit. When we get through this next gate, we go up a hill and then over the ridge. We’ll see the farm buildings about quarter of a mile in front. The road comes out behind a large barn, then we have to go through a courtyard that leads us to a long driveway and down to a gate where we join the road. We need to get through the courtyard pretty quickly, because I’m guessing they’re not going to be too happy about us being here, and with it being a farm, they’ll have a shotgun or two kicking around, I would imagine.” He waited for a response, but she just looked at him again, her blue eyes angry and a little scared.
Mike opened the gate and this time didn’t bother to shut it. He jumped into the cab and they were away. Lucy slowly built up speed, trying to move through the gears as smoothly as possible, cringing each time they grated. The ambulance rounded the barn and she put her foot to the floor as they crossed the stone chip courtyard in front of the large farmhouse. Then she jammed on the brakes. The ambulance skidded and a spray of small stones flew into the air. There was a man lying face down in front of them with dried blood on the side of his head. Another man was leant up against a wall, a big red mass of blood where his heart used to be, his mouth open, eyes closed. The farmhouse door was ajar and a pair of legs lay in the entrance, preventing the breeze from pushing the door shut.
Lucy pulled on the handbrake. “What do you think?” she asked Mike, just as Samantha joined them to find out why they had stopped.
“I think we should get out of here as quickly as we can,” Mike said, without any hesitation.
Before he had a chance to stop her, Lucy opened her door and got out. She went over to the lifeless body blocking their exit and felt for a pulse, but the body was cold; he’d been dead for several hours at least. She headed towards the farmhouse and Samantha got out to join her. Mike remained in the passenger seat and turned round to look at his sister.
“Stay here a minute,” he said, grabbing his hatchet and dismounting before his sister had chance to ask what was going on.
He caught up with the two women and stopped them before they entered the farmhouse. Mike barged through the door and over the other body. His head shot from side to side to make sure there was no-one else in the room, then he signalled for the two women to enter.
Lucy bent down to examine the body in the doorway. This man was clearly older but, from the back anyway, didn’t display any obvious signs of trauma.
Mike went from room to room checking for any other inhabitants. Only when he was sure they were alone did he rejoin the women in the kitchen.
“Mike, this one’s in bad shape, but he’s alive. Give me a hand with him and we’ll get him to one of the bedrooms.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order, and Mike was visibly annoyed. Annoyed she had got out of the ambulance in the first place, annoyed they were taking unnecessary risks and annoyed they were wasting time, but nonetheless he went to help her.
Just then, there was a barely audible but definite thud at the other end of the large country kitchen. It had come from the pantry. The three of them looked at each other and then across to the pine panelled door. Mike tentatively crossed the kitchen, weapon poised in readiness once again, lifted the small wrought-iron latch securing the door and pulled it open as quickly as he could. The cupboard was virtually empty, just some bags of flour and a couple of sacks of potatoes propped up against the walls. He was about to close the door when he heard another small thud. He looked again, and this time noticed a square of panelling at the back of the pantry that wasn’t flush with the rest of the wall. He reached for it and pulled. The heavy pine square fell forward followed by the black metal nostrils of a shotgun.
With lightning speed, Mike grabbed the gun and angled it away while he found leverage against the back wall of the pantry and pulled fiercely. The explosion echoed around the kitchen; the smell of gunpowder was overpowering in the confines of the small cupboard. Mike wrestled the shotgun away and threw it across the kitchen floor towards Lucy, who picked it up and cocked it with expertise. He dived into the small secret hollow, ready to do battle with whoever was there. A small torch lit up in one corner, revealing an older woman, whose cheeks were stained with several layers of dried tears, and two boys: one huddled next to his mother; the other, slightly older, clearly in shock at just having had a shotgun ripped from his grip. Panic flared in his eyes as he saw the small axe in Mike’s hand. He began to shake and Mike lowered his weapon.
“Bloody hell, kid, what are you playing at? You could have killed someone,” growled Mike.
“We thought... we thought they’d come back for us. We thought they’d come back to kill us. Me and my brother and my mum,” the young boy answered in a broad Yorkshire accent.
“Who?”
“Them that was here last night. There were five of them. I saw them through the window before I got in here.” He rubbed the palm of his hand against his eyes to wipe away a stream of tears. “There were some gun shots and I saw my brother and Francis get hit. My dad locked us in here. He went to get my sisters, but he never came back. We heard shouting
and more shots. We heard fighting and laughing. I wanted to come out to fight, but I couldn’t leave my little brother and my mum. When you opened the door I thought they’d come back for us.”
“Yeah. Well, don’t worry, kid, we’re not here to hurt you,” Mike said, putting his hand onto the young boy’s shoulder. “Let’s get the three of you out of here.”
All four of them slowly emerged from the small pantry. Samantha was crouched over the man lying in the doorway. She had flipped him onto his back and was dabbing at the dried blood on his sun-browned, craggy face. His eyes fluttered with each gentle caress from the wet kitchen towel. She guessed he was probably in his late fifties, but he looked strong, a formidable opponent in a fight. She wouldn’t want to meet whoever had done this to him.
“Dad!” the two boys shouted in unison as they rushed over to the figure on the ground.
“Joseph, oh, Joseph!” the woman cried, sweeping past Mike and the stranger holding the shotgun to reach her injured husband.
“We were just about to get him to a bedroom when we heard you,” said Lucy. “I’ve examined him briefly and he seems okay, other than some nasty looking cuts, bruising and possibly a mild concussion, but I’d like to give him a proper check-up.
“Are you a doctor?” the woman asked, looking up from her husband.
“Yes, ma’am, and Samantha there is a nurse. If we can get him to a bed, I’d be happy to check him over properly and get his wounds cleaned up.” No sooner had she spoken than the young boys began lifting their father, who had already become more responsive. They limped with him through the living room and into a hallway where sunlight from several open doors lit the way to a master bedroom at the end of the short corridor.
Joseph’s face contorted with pain as he was lowered onto the bed. His wife untied his boots and undressed him down to his underwear so that Lucy could examine him.
Mike and Lucy went back out to the ambulance. Lucy grabbed her doctor’s bag and a few bits and pieces from the built-in cabinets, while Mike explained the situation to his brother and sisters.
Back inside, Lucy headed straight to the bedroom to perform Joseph’s check-up. In the kitchen, the farmer’s wife busied herself boiling large pans of water on the range, while Emma helped sweep up the broken crockery and plaster caused by the shotgun blast. Sammy and Jake were put in the living room with the younger of the two boys, while the older one stayed in the bedroom with his father, there to help if the doctor or nurse needed him.
Mike decided to have a look around the property, noticing there were several large corrugated metal outbuildings. In one, he found animal feed stacked high on pallets, although all the animals had been shipped out of the quarantine districts long ago. Now it was just going to rot there in its sacks. There was a larger barn next to it that housed a number of farm vehicles as well as a plush new Land Rover and a large four-berth caravan. There were bags of cement piled up next to the door and two large drums with “Red Diesel” scrawled on the side in black marker, next to five green jerricans filled to the brim with presumably the same stuff. In the largest of the metal sheds there was a flatbed truck, and behind it there was an assembly of metal racking full of tubs, jars, bottles and cans. The farmer had obviously been canning and pickling what he could to provide a stockpile if and when the rations ran out. There were plastic tubs at the end of the racking containing seeds. Mike liked the man’s forward planning, and his optimism.
A light scraping sound caused Mike’s hand to tighten around the handle of his hatchet. When he got to the other side of the racking he saw a large rat caught hopelessly in a trap, its back end crushed, its face almost pleading. Mike was never that keen on rats, but he wouldn’t see any animal suffer, so he knelt down next to it and turned the handle of the hatchet so that the wider metal wedge would come down first.
“I’m sorry, fella,” he said quietly and then brought down the tool in a single, powerful motion. The creature’s head flattened and movement ceased. “Damn it.” The taking of the animal’s life pained him. He wiped his hatchet on a piece of sackcloth and went back outside.
He paused as something dawned on him that he felt foolish for not thinking of before. When the raiders left, surely they wouldn’t have bothered to stop to close the gate to the farm. For all he knew, there could be hundreds of RAMs storming up the lane. He ran across to the ambulance, jumped inside, started the engine and crunched it into gear, making the vehicle judder before it slowly moved off. As he drove past the windows of the farmhouse he saw Emma, hands outstretched, shrugging as if to ask the question what are you doing? He put two fingers up, almost like a peace sign, and mouthed two minutes as he moved off.
Mike sped down the winding driveway, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. He pulled on the handbrake and parked up in a passing place just before the final bend that led to the gate. He left the engine running and got out, quietly edging around the corner. The gate was shut. Not just shut: he could see from here that it was bolted. The only reason the raiders would have risked taking the time to bolt the gate was that they intended to come back. Mike realised that he needed to get everybody out of there straight away. He climbed back into the ambulance, did an eight-point turn and headed back.
*
In the bedroom, Lucy and Samantha had cleaned up the farmer’s wounds. He was badly bruised and there were some nasty cuts, but nothing too serious. The shame he felt for not being able to protect his family was far greater than the physical pain he was in.
“They took my daughters.” His voice was croaky, and Samantha lifted his head so he could take a sip of water. “They took my daughters and they killed my son and my son-in-law. He held back a sob as he spoke. “And I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them.”
“How many were there?” Lucy asked.
“Five of them, all armed. We only have two shotguns on the place. I gave one of them to Peter and put him in the hidey-hole behind the pantry with my wife and youngest son. My eldest had the other, and he was the first one they shot. I saw Francis, my son-in-law, rush at one of them with a pitchfork and the next thing I knew he was on the ground too. My daughters were in one of the barns laying traps for the vermin. I didn’t have time to get to them. They were on top of me, punching and kicking me. I saw my daughters dragged off before I blacked out.” He stopped as his eyes welled with tears.
“Did you know them? Did you know who they were?” Lucy sat down on the bed and took hold of the farmer’s rough brown hand. He shook his head sadly. The young boy who was waiting by the door stared at the floor. His sisters were gone, his brother was dead and his father had become a mere shadow of what he once was.
“How old are your daughters?” It was Samantha who continued the questioning.
“Beth is twenty-two, she’s only just got married. Annie’s...” The big man broke down in fits of tears that gushed over his craggy face. “She’s only eleven, for God’s sake. She’s only eleven. Who’d do something like that?” He looked up at the two women. “Tell me, who’d do something like that?”
Both women held back their emotions. What kind of a world was this? They stayed with the farmer until he drifted off to sleep, or maybe he just shut out the world. Either way, they removed themselves from the room and went back to the kitchen. Alice, the farmer’s wife, had prepared some sandwiches and made some tea. Lucy believed that as well as being in a state of shock and denial, Alice was probably a little slow-witted. Keeping busy was the best thing for her, but at some stage she was going to have to face what had happened.
Mike opened the outer kitchen door as Samantha and Lucy came through the inner one.
“How is he?” asked Emma. Alice stopped stoking the coals in the range to listen.
“He’s resting now,” Lucy said. “He got badly beaten, but there’s no permanent damage.” She looked at Alice. “I’d let him sleep for a little while before you go in. He’s been through a lot.” Alice smiled nervously and resumed stoking the coals.
“We can’t just leave these people, Mike,” Samantha said. “They need our help.”
“Fine, they can come with us, but these raiders will be back, so we need to move.”
“He’s not going anywhere. Jesus, after what’s just happened to them...” Lucy was a little agitated by Mike’s lack of compassion.
“Okay, look, I’ll try to convince him. I’ll explain to him that if these guys come back it will be his whole family wiped out next time.”
“Mike. They kidnapped his daughters. One of them was eleven. Eleven, Mike, that’s not much older than Sammy.” Lucy’s words hung in the air like acrid smoke.
“I’m not saying this is an ideal situation, Doc. It’s shit. There isn’t a part of this that doesn’t stick in my gut. But what it boils down to is this: I need to protect my family. I’m not going to risk these fuckers getting hold of Sammy or Em, or you or Samantha for that matter. When I said I owed you, Doc, I meant it. As far as I’m concerned, you’re with us now. Like I say, I’ll do my best to make him see sense. But we have to leave. I’m not prepared to risk our safety.”
Safe Haven (Book 1): Rise of the Rams Page 10