The House Next Door Trilogy (Books 1-3)

by Jule Owen

  “What were you doing with him?”

  Mathew thinks quickly. “I was hunting for things to salvage when he found me.”

  Kilfeather nods. “Were the men asleep in the boat your friends?”

  Mathew doesn’t speak He makes a slight, ambiguous movement with his head.

  “It’s alright. We’re on your side. This isn’t an interrogation.”

  Mathew gazes dumbly at Drake and Jonah, who share this sentiment and nod encouragingly.

  “What did he do to them?” Jonah asks, “They were out cold.”

  Mathew shrugs, “I don’t know.”

  “Some neural trickery, no doubt,” Jonah says, disgusted. “Some mind-tech voodoo.”

  “They have brain modems now,” Drake says. “They think-speak amongst one another and read other people’s thoughts.”

  “Nonsense,” Kilfeather says.

  “It’s true,” Jonah says.

  “God knows how we’re going to win against them. They aren’t human anymore,” Drake says.

  Mathew says, “Quinn Hacquinn wasn’t human.”

  All the men think he means metaphorically and they nod sympathetically.

  “We’ll win,” Jonah says. “Don’t you worry. Our time is nigh. We’ll bring them, their machines and their science abominations crashing to earth. As the book says, ‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways, and seek my face, I will hear from Heaven and will heal their land.’”

  Kilfeather says to Mathew, “I’m sorry to say, the leeches probably got your friends. Did you live with them?”

  Mathew again resorts to the barely perceptible head tilt, which might be interpreted as a nod.

  “The boy is canny,” Drake says. “Not going to spill any beans.”

  “He’s loyal and careful with his words. A virtue these days,” says Kilfeather sharply. He aims the words at Drake perched at the stern, steering the boat. Then he turns to Mathew. “Do you have anywhere to stay? Is there anywhere we can drop you?”

  “Not here, no. I’m heading north.”

  “North where?”

  “Silverwood.”

  Drake splutters. The men exchange glances.

  Jonah says, “They only admit leeches. Are you a leech?”

  “The boy’s never a leech. Look at him. His augments are all external. Old tech. He’s not a zombie. Look at his hair, his weird clothes. He’s as much a free man as you or I,” Drake says.

  “In these dark days, I am suspicious of everyone,” Jonah says seriously.

  “Why Silverwood?” Kilfeather asks.

  “I need to speak to somebody.”

  “We all need to speak to somebody from Silverwood, boy,” Drake says, chuckling. “How are you planning to get there?”

  Mathew shrugs.

  “We’re going your way. Do you want to come with us?” Kilfeather asks.

  Drake guffaws. He reaches over and slaps Mathew on the back, “Careful. You’re being recruited.”

  Kilfeather shoots Drake a glance.

  Jonah says, “You should tell the boy what he’d be getting himself into.”

  Kilfeather nods. “You’re right, Jonah.” He turns to Mathew, “I’ll tell you what I believe and why.”

  Drake groans.

  “Why don’t you watch for floaters, Corporal?” Kilfeather says.

  Drake begrudgingly stands and moves to the front of the boat.

  Kilfeather leans forward, close to Mathew’s face, and says, “A leech, a monster, took my hand for stealing food. I was a starving eight-year-old, and he sent me away with a bleeding stump. It turned gangrenous. No human being would do such things to a child. I realised then the leeches aren’t human at all. The country has been invaded by a plague of monsters. The doctor who saved my life was a human being, but she had to take the rest of my arm off, which stopped the infection spreading. She saved my life. And another human being made this for me,” he says, holding his arm above his head. “I am an Accountant because the leeches made me one the day they took my hand. Most of the Accountants are men and women like me. We weren’t looking for a fight or a cause. We were all of us trying to live. Just trying to survive. They made enemies of us. We had no choice. We fight or we surrender and die like animals.

  “Many of the people who hate the scientists have lost loved ones to a virus made by a government laboratory. The whole world is worried the Mercy is spreading and they know somewhere, for God-only-knows-what reason, scientists made it. The Edenists and the Accountants both want a different world order. The Edenists believe it is God’s punishment and they don’t fight for change. They think it will come anyway. The Accountants fight because all of this - the weather, the state of the country, the viruses - it is all men doing reckless, arrogant, cruel things. That’s why I’m proud to be amongst their number.”

  From the front of the boat, Drake claps, slow and genuinely appreciative, and then notices Jonah. “He doesn’t like what you said regarding the God-squad, Sir.”

  “No, indeed,” Kilfeather says. “He’s entitled to his opinion. As I am mine.”

  “But you still haven’t told the boy what he’s getting himself into,” Drake says.

  “You’re right, Drake.” Kilfeather regards Mathew thoughtfully. “Would you like to join an army, Mathew?”

  “An army?”

  “A righteous army.”

  “I…”

  “Join us. Come with us and tomorrow we will take you to Silverwood.”

  18 The Castle

  The long snaking river of the westward Thames is no longer, as it once was many years ago, a tame, pastoral stretch of water. It sprawls and is savage, broadening across the flat lands of the Thames Valley, forming lakes around drowned, abandoned towns. Richmond, Kew Gardens, and Hampton Court are all part-submerged worlds. The locks along the river are drowned. Even at low tide, the river rages high above them. It has made the ancient waterway one of the most efficient ways to get around, now the roads and the motorways are full of potholes and armed gangs with bad intent patrol them.

  “We will put a stop to it,” Kilfeather says as they pass another boat and wave to the crew and passengers. “This river is safe because we own it. We will end the lawlessness on the roads. Ironic, isn’t it, that the insurgents should be the ones to bring law and order back to the land?”

  They approach Windsor. The castle rises from the water at dusk. Mathew is amazed when they turn towards the ancient grey walls. No one had told him where they were going, but this is the most unlikely destination of all.

  “Are we stopping here?” he asks Kilfeather.

  “Yes. This is home,” he says, but he is preoccupied now, thinking ahead. No longer with Mathew.

  They take the boat along the High Street, almost to the corner of Castle Street, where there is a jetty.

  Kilfeather jumps as soon as the front of the boat touches dry land. Without a word of goodbye to Mathew, without even acknowledging Jonah or Drake, he starts to stride away, head bowed in thought. He heads to the Henry VIII Gateway. Armed soldiers stand to attention and make way as he approaches.

  “What should we do with the boy?” Jonah shouts after Kilfeather.

  Kilfeather turns as he walks and shouts back, “Feed him. Find him somewhere to sleep. Make him welcome.”

  Jonah and Drake finish tying up the boat. They stand and stare at Mathew.

  “I’m not a frickin’ babysitter,” Jonah says to Mathew. “You are old enough to take care of yourself. We’ll take you to the mess hall. The bunkhouse is in the state apartments. Use your initiative.”

  They pass through the gates, into the Lower Ward. The guards know and greet Jonah and Drake.

  A long line of men stands outside St George’s Chapel, queuing, waiting patiently to enter.

  “The Vicar’s busy tonight,” Drake says.

  “He’s running round-the-clock services. They want to take Communion before they go," Jonah says. "Not everyone
thinks like Kilfeather. In fact, judging by the length of that line, most people don't think like Kilfeather.”

  “He’s a smart man,” Drake says.

  Jonah snorts, “You know Ransom Farmer, the lay preacher, says Kilfeather's arm is an abomination.”

  They step aside as two men pull and push a cart full of stacked metal boxes up the slope of cobbles.

  “Ransom Farmer is an idiot. With his arm, Kilfeather is one of the most effective soldiers we have. If he didn’t have it, he'd be sweeping floors.”

  “Ransom Farmer says Kilfeather should be sweeping floors. Or worse. Says he’s a coalition spy. Says he’s an abomination, quoted Leviticus at us: ‘For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he who has a disfigured face, or any deformed limb, or a man who has a broken foot or broken hand’.”

  “That’s nonsense. The Director trusts him with his life.”

  “Maybe. Perhaps it’s because Director Hathaway has augments himself.”

  “Hathaway?”

  “There are rumours his eye isn’t real.”

  “His eye?”

  “They say he has an augmented eye.”

  “Which eye?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. You don’t know because there’s nothing wrong with Hathaway’s eyes. I’ve spoken to him many times. He’s a whole man.”

  “You’re right, there’s nothing wrong with his eyes. That’s precisely why it’s strange.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people say they’re not his own.”

  “People shouldn’t spread gossip about Hathaway. They should be careful about using scripture against Kilfeather, too.”

  “But he has strange ideas. He is not godly.”

  Drake laughs and then starts to cough. “I hope for your sake you never say so around Kilfeather. His abominable hand crushes men’s skulls.”

  “Ha! Who told you that? Have you seen him do it?”

  “I've seen him crush a melon with one hand. It burst into pieces.”

  “Bull. Where’d he get a melon from? If he had one, he wouldn’t waste it.”

  Jonah and Drake squabble all the way to the Round Tower. Soldiers – men and women – are everywhere, lugging kit bags and supplies. They all head away from the town.

  Mathew, Drake and Jonah follow the crush through the Norman Gate, into the Upper Ward and the state apartments. They take stone steps into the castle and get carried along with the crowd along stone-floored passageways and through rooms with high ceilings.

  Mathew’s awestruck eyes comb his surroundings. The walls are mainly bare, with large square discoloured patches where paintings were once hung. They climb the Grand Staircase, the carpet worn threadbare beneath army boots. Roses of armour and ancient weapons still blossom on the walls, breastplates, pots, war hammers, battle-axes and pikes. Mathew strains back his neck and gapes at the plaster fan-vaulted ceiling as they pass into the Grand Vestibule. The crowd splits here and Mathew starts to walk the wrong way.

  Jonah grabs his arm. “This way,” he says. “They’re going to St George’s Hall. We’re allocated to the Waterloo Chamber.”

  The long hall is crammed with three great tables and chairs. There’s a shorter table like the hat of a triple ‘t’ at the top end. There are hundreds of places, but they fill quickly. The room buzzes with the energy of two hundred men and women. The noise is deafening.

  Around the edges of the room there are long narrow tables spread with food; huge pots of stew, curry, rice, potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, and food smells mingle in an air already thick with the scent of humid bodies.

  Mathew takes his place in the queue behind Jonah and Drake, who pass crockery and cutlery along the line to him. He follows behind and loads his plate, hungry after the day’s events. Then they find seats together at one of the banquet tables.

  The crowd of people around him is as diverse as a busy London street in 2055. Men and women of all ages, races, shapes and sizes. There is a general attempt at a uniform. It is more of a token gesture; the grey combat trousers and jackets of Mathew’s companions are many different shades and types of material, patched and ill-fitting. Many people wear their own clothes as well as their uniforms.

  Mathew’s eyes are drawn upwards to the ceiling, fashioned to look like the hull of a ship from the early nineteenth century. The golden ceiling glows; the chandeliers still hang and are lit above them like many little suns. The paintings that once hung on the wood panels around the room have been removed, like most things of value, but the limed carvings remain, as does the ornate carpet.

  “It’s the largest seamless carpet in existence,” Drake says, noticing Mathew staring at it. “Shame, isn’t it?” he says as they watch someone spill curry from their plate onto the floor. “Ruined now, of course.”

  “Prisoners made it,” Jonah says. He chews with his mouth open. “Poor buggers. People like us.”

  “We’re not prisoners anymore.”

  “No, indeed. The meek shall inherit the earth.”

  “Amen to that, brother.”

  The table's surface is bedecked with yet more food, baskets of bread, fried potatoes, a clutter of salts, peppers and all kinds of condiments. There are scraps of material, a patchwork to protect the surface of the table, but the bare parts are marked with heat rings and the veneer is chipped. Someone has carved initials near Mathew's place. There is copious wine and beer. Most of the people are drunk.

  Drake offers Jonah some ale from a jug. Jonah refuses, taking water instead. He pours Mathew a cup and says, “We will be leaving early tomorrow. These men shouldn’t be drinking. They won’t be fit for service tomorrow.”

  Drake says, “This might be their last night on earth. You can’t begrudge them a drink or two.”

  Jonah sniffs, “What use is an army if half of them are hung over?” But his heart isn’t in it.

  Mathew wants to ask questions - he wants to know more about the army and where they are going, but he worries it is another one of those things he should know and his ignorance will betray him. Instead he stays quiet.

  Drake tucks into his food with gusto, using his hands. Jonah catches Mathew’s eye and says, “He was never house-trained.”

  Drake says, “For an Accountant, you have a lot of bourgeois attitudes.” He turns to Mathew, “I was born on the streets and this man, who claims to be a leader of the people’s army, thinks it’s something to look down upon.”

  “No I don’t,” Jonah says. “But nor does it elevate you. And you do know how to use a knife and fork; you choose not to.”

  “Hark at him,” Drake says.

  Jonah observes Mathew. “I’m curious. We have brought you all the way along the river, from London to this ridiculous place, and you have not once expressed surprise at us being here.”

  Mathew says, “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “It is too. I still find it crazy and we’ve been here eighteen months. Leave the lad alone, Jonah,” Drake says.

  “He could be anyone.”

  “A leech attacked him. That makes him my friend.”

  Jonah says to Mathew, “Do you have any idea what will happen tomorrow?”

  Mathew shakes his head.

  “He’s a lamb,” Drake says. “An innocent lamb amongst wolves.”

  “The people’s army, they are wolves are they? Which side are you on, Drake?” Jonah says.

  Drake takes a long draw on his beer and nods to the door, “Here comes our Chief Accountant, to tell me straight which side I’m on.”

  Mathew turns his gaze to where Drake has indicated. A hush has fallen. It ripples across the room like a wave; loud whispered calls for quiet herald total silence.

  “I bet you never thought you’d be in the same room as Director Hathaway!” Drake says to Mathew.

  Someone shushes Drake. People turn and stare at him. Drake does mock surrender, raising his hands.

  A man has come into the room. He stands
with Kilfeather, who towers above him. He is small and thin-boned, sandy-haired with a soft, pretty face. He’s dressed in combat gear, the same humble grey uniform as the rest of the Accountant army, but on him it is too neat, like dress-up clothes for a very tidy child. When he speaks it is softly; the men have to lean towards his voice.

  He says, “None of us want to be here tonight. We want to be at home with our families and our friends, eating dinner, going to bed on a full stomach, having a good night’s sleep in our own beds with the knowledge we will wake the next day and do useful work, live our lives like normal people do.

  “We have been brought here against our wills. The government called us to arms because it denies us these simple rights. It has taken our homes from us, our means of earning a living, our work. For most of us, at one time or another, it has taken the food from our mouths. The country is drowning and where it is not drowned, a rot has set in. Because we do not believe this is inevitable and necessary, we are forced against our wills into the roles of soldiers and from tomorrow we will be leaders...”

  There are cheers and shouts.

  He waits, raises his hand to quieten the crowd, “We will be the conquerors of our own country. If we want to live, we have to take this land back and make it ours again. So tomorrow, you must make your reluctant hands take a gun and use it against other men. I do not say ‘your countrymen’ because the men of government, the men building Silverwood, they are traitors to this country…”

  More shouts and another patient pause.

  When silence has resumed he says, “We are the walking dead. We only have ourselves to blame. We have allowed what is rightfully ours to be taken from us.”

  The men shout at the tops of their voices now. Hathaway raises his voice above theirs to say, “To live again, we have to fight. We will fight to take back our lives.”

  Mathew watches the small sandy-haired man curiously as he walks along the side of the hall with Kilfeather at his side. The other men reach just to touch him. He is ill at ease with the attention, slightly embarrassed and impatient to be elsewhere. Hathaway is on the other side of the hall but all the time he gets closer until there is only a table between them. He has stopped to talk to someone. As Hathaway leans to speak into the man’s ear, his eyes focus across the table and fix on Mathew.