The House Next Door Trilogy (Books 1-3)

by Jule Owen

  “Sorry about the window,” Mathew says.

  Jack lifts his chin slightly in acknowledgement, but not necessarily acceptance of his apology.

  “Could I use your Nexus connection? I have people I should call. The gang, the Reapers, they stole my Lenz and my e-Pin. I have a Paper, though,” he says, taking a small square out of his pocket and unfolding it.

  “We don’t have a connection,” Elia says. “We don’t have power. Nothing is working here.”

  “But the Nexus is wireless. That shouldn’t be affected by the floods.”

  “They shut it down,” Jack says. “You shouldn’t have come here,” Jack says.

  Elia glances at Jack, “What else could they have done?”

  “They could have walked down the motorway.”

  “We were the nearest house. They weren’t to know. We don’t exactly have a sign outside telling people to keep out.”

  “Perhaps we should put one up. Normally, it isn’t an issue. The patrol keep people out, but they must have scarpered when the Reapers moved in. Bloody cowards.”

  “They’re not here to protect us.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mathew says.

  “Of course you don’t.”

  There is a sound in the kitchen, something metallic being dropped on the stone floor. Dr Russell swearing. They all look towards the kitchen door. “Poor boy,” Elia says.

  “We’re all poor people, these days,” says Jack.

  “Is there a village nearby, where I can connect to the Nexus?” Mathew asks.

  Jack laughs. “Perhaps, if you go now, you might get out, if you don’t expect to come back. The patrol will be there again in the morning. They may be out there now.”

  “What are they patrolling?”

  “This town. Us. Keeping us in.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re frightened of us. They’re worried they’ll catch what we have.”

  “What is it you have?”

  Jack and Elia glance at one another. Elia hesitates and then says, “We don’t know.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “Not exactly,” Jack says.

  Elia looks at Mathew. “We’re in quarantine. That is why the soldiers patrol our village. That is why we can’t leave. There’s sickness in the village.”

  “You don’t look sick,” Mathew says.

  “Jack was, a few months back.”

  Jack shifts in his seat and turns to Mathew, “I fell asleep and couldn’t wake up.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Mathew says, smiling.

  Elia and Jack don’t smile back. Jack says, “I was riding my bike at the time.”

  Mathew’s eyes widen, “How is that even possible?”

  Jack shrugs, “Luckily, there was nothing else on the road. I simply drove off the road onto a verge, hit a wall and toppled over.”

  “Well, it must have woken you up.”

  Jack shakes his head. “Actually, it didn’t.”

  Elia says, “He was asleep for ten days. That was three months ago, before any of us understood what was going on.”

  “Not that we know now,” Jack says.

  Elia says, “We initially thought he’d had a stroke, but his medibot didn’t record anything. As far as the hospital was concerned, there was nothing wrong with him. They sent him home.”

  “An anomaly, they said.”

  “Then it started happening to others.”

  “In the last three months, half the village has had it, whatever it is. Mr. Mackey fell asleep sitting outside his house in the sunshine and no one could wake him up. Mo Sadat went out cold with his head in his soup. Vic Nafzger didn’t wake in the morning when his wife brought his morning cup of coffee.

  “It took us a couple of months to persuade the authorities something was wrong. It was a mistake to try. When they did take us seriously, there were a few weeks of them running tests, and then suddenly they shut down the town. No one could come in. No one could leave. And they shut down the Nexus.”

  “How can they do that?”

  “They have signal blockers ranged about the town.”

  “We haven’t spoken to our family and friends for over six weeks. They may have tried to come here. If they have, they will have been turned away at gunpoint.”

  “Has there been anything on the news about us?” Elia asks.

  Mathew says, “No. Nothing on the Blackweb either. If anyone knew about it, it would be all over Psychopomp, even if the main news wasn’t covering it.” Elia raises an eyebrow but Jack smiles slightly. Mathew continues, “There’s nothing but stuff about the war, and the floods.”

  “We knew it had flooded again, but a war? What is this about a war?”

  “We’re at war. Did you not know?”

  They both shake their heads, “The patrol keep their distance. They won’t talk to us. They’re frightened they may catch something, although Dr Russell doesn’t think it’s airborne contagious. She doesn’t think anything was wrong with our water either. Her best guess is it was something in our food, or something sprayed over us, pesticides perhaps.”

  “Or biological weapons,” Mathew says. Elia and Jack stare at Mathew. “We are at war,” Mathew says.

  “When did the war start?” Elia asks.

  Mathew thinks, “Three weeks ago.”

  “We’ve been sick for months.”

  “The war officially started on 25th November with the destruction of the Battlestars, but perhaps the war had already started, and only the government knew about it. Perhaps that’s why you’re sick.”

  “Who destroyed the Battlestars?”

  “Russia and China.”

  “We’re at war with Russia and China?”

  Mathew nods.

  “The boy might have a point about why we’re sick.”

  “Biological weapons are illegal.”

  Mathew says, “Maybe, but our government has some kind of bioweapons programme. I know it for a fact.”

  “How do you know?”

  Mathew shrugs. “I just do.”

  Dr Russell comes into the room, wiping her hands on a cloth. “I’ve done what I can. I’m afraid I couldn’t save his eye. If you can get him to the right kind of hospital and the right kind of doctor, they may be able to rebuild one for him.”

  “How is he going to get to a hospital?” Jack asks.

  The doctor shakes her head. “I don’t have a clue, but right now Isaac needs to rest and recover. I wouldn’t suggest moving him for a couple of days.”

  “Where’s he going to stay? We’re on meagre rations as it is.”

  “Well, if it’s an issue for you,” Dr Russell says, “I’ll take the boys home with me, but I only have one bedroom.”

  Elia says, looking at her husband, “They will stay here, of course they will. Won’t they, Jack?”

  Jack sighs.

  “Thank you both. That is generous,” Dr Russell says. “Isn’t it, Mathew?”

  “It is. But I want to leave tomorrow.”

  “What about your friend?”

  “He’s not my friend. I found him on the road. I don’t know him.”

  “You do now.”

  “I need to get word to my grandmother. She’ll be crazy worried.”

  “We all want to get word to our families, Mathew.”

  “I will get word to them. I will get out of here and tell everyone what is going on. I will contact your families and tell them you are okay.”

  Jack and Elia look at one another. “You would do that?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “And Isaac’s parents?” Dr Russell says.

  “Isaac’s parents are dead. The Reapers shot them. I saw them in the back of a car on the motorway.”

  “Oh God, the poor boy!” Elia says.

  Mathew is silent. Dr Russell says, “So he is blind and totally alone.”

  “I am alone too.”

  “So you sh
ould understand why that is not a good thing. You said you have your grandmother.”

  “He might have a grandmother.”

  “He might,” Dr Russell agrees, continuing to study Mathew’s face.

  “He will slow me down. It will be harder to get away with him along.”

  Jack says, “He’s right. If we can get him out, we should do it now, while the patrol is hiding from the Reapers.” He gets up and goes to the window. There are no patrol lights. “I think they are still keeping clear. He could walk back the way he came along the motorway. Shevinton isn’t far. I could even give him my bike. He could cycle on the hard shoulder.”

  “Is that what you want?” Dr Russell asks, looking at Mathew.

  The thought of going out into the rain and the dark alone, passing the bodies of Vid and Falkous and potentially running into the Reapers again, makes Mathew’s heart sink. But he says, “Yes.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Elia says. “The reason the patrol hasn’t come back is because the Reapers are still out there. Look what they did to the boy.”

  “He wants to go!” Jack says. “He just said. We can’t keep him here against his will.”

  Dr Russell sighs and turns to Mathew, “Jack is right. Go if you want. Isaac will need to stay here and I will look after him.” She turns to Elia. “He’s heavily sedated. He needs somewhere to sleep it off.”

  “Upstairs,” Elia says.

  “Can you help me carry him? He’s not heavy.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jack says and he follows Dr Russell into the kitchen, reappearing with Isaac folded limp in his arms, a surgical dressing over his eye. Elia follows Jack and Isaac upstairs with one of the candles from the kitchen.

  Dr Russell takes a seat next to Mathew, slumping down heavily, rubbing her face. She looks exhausted. She says, “Don’t let us keep you. The door isn’t locked.” Mathew doesn’t move. She watches him for a moment and then nods, as if satisfied. Then she asks, “What happened today?”

  “I don’t know. A gang blocked the motorway. Jack and Elia said they’re called the Reapers.”

  “Yes, Jack said as much. I meant to you?”

  Mathew shrugs, “My guards were killed.”

  “Did you see it happen?”

  “I saw one of them shot. I saw the body of the other one. She saved my life.”

  “They are paid to.”

  “Not like she did.”

  “How do you feel?”

  Mathew is surprised, as if the question is irrelevant. He says, “Numb. Tired.”

  Dr Russell nods, standing up. Elia and Jack come down the stairs again. “I’m going to go home,” she says. “I will come first thing in the morning. We can make a plan then. Thank you both for being so generous in helping the boys.”

  Jack holds the door open for the doctor, as she grabs her coat, pulling the collar around her neck, and she steps out into the rain.

  After she has gone, Jack and Elia have gone to bed and he is settled under a blanket on the sofa, occasionally sprayed with fine rain from the broken window, Mathew thinks about why it was that Dr Russell had thanked Elia and Jack, when it was she who had helped Isaac and himself. He falls asleep still thinking about it.

  8 Jackdaw

  DAY TWENTY-FIVE: Thursday 16th December 2055

  The bird wakes him. He opens his eyes and lies still, his breath steaming. A frost came overnight and the broken window funnels in the cold. It is morning. Pale winter light spills into the room. His eye catches movement over his shoulder. Without turning his head, he looks out of the corner of his eye. A large black bird with a grey feathered hood and small blue eyes is sitting on the back of the sofa. Its head is cocked and one beady eye is looking down at him, trying to figure out if he’s dead or not and therefore whether or not he is food. A moment later Jack comes heavy-footed down the stairs and straight into the living room. The bird tries to fly off, hits the ceiling and then proceeds to flap around the room.

  “Bloody hell!” Jack says, chasing after it. “That bloody broken window. These birds are horrible. Horrible.”

  Mathew scrambles to his feet, grabbing his blanket and cornering the bird; he throws the rug over it. It immediately becomes still. Mathew bundles the blanket all the way around the bird, picks it up and goes through the front door, into the garden. Away from the house, he kneels on the gravel pathway leading down to the road, opens the blanket and lets the bird go. It half-hops, half-flies away, skittering down the garden towards the wet fields beyond. Then it takes a perch on the low branch of a tree, shaking its feathers and preening, trying to restore some of its bruised dignity.

  There is a shed at the bottom of the garden. Jack walks towards it, “Come on,” he says, tapping Mathew on the shoulder. “As you broke the bloody window, the least you can do is help me fix it.”

  The grass is soft and waterlogged. Mathew is still in his bare feet. The water is freezing. He stops to roll his trouser legs and then trots on after Jack, wishing he’d pulled on his boots. Jack stops him and points through a gap in the hedge.

  Across the watery field, there’s an armoured military vehicle on the motorway, which is otherwise now clear. There is no sign of the cars, vans and trucks Mathew left behind the night before. “Our brave friends are back,” Jack says grimly, indicating the camouflaged truck. “You missed your chance to escape.”

  They retrieve tools and some plywood and return to the house, Jack nailing the board, as Mathew holds it in place. “That will do for now,” Jack says. “It will have to, I suppose. There are no glaziers in the town.”

  Mathew is sorry, but decides there is no point in saying so again. He helps Jack put away the tools and returns to the house, where Elia is in the kitchen. She sees Mathew’s feet.

  “What are you letting the boy go out in the garden in his bare feet for? Apart from the fact that he’ll probably catch his death, he’s trailing mud into my living room. As are you.” Jack looks at her dumbly. She says, “Take off your boots, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Jack says, sitting down on the nearest chair and removing a pair of beaten old walking boots.

  Elia hands Mathew a towel and he dries his feet. “Put some socks on, at least,” she says and Mathew goes off to the living room to dig his socks out of his boots. When he returns, Elia is toasting some bread.

  “It’s only a slice each,” she says. “We have to be careful with food. We don’t know how long we will be here and we only have what was in our local village store, in our food cupboards in the house and what the replicator can make.”

  Mathew takes a seat at the old battered farmhouse table where Isaac had been operated on the night before.

  “I hope Dr Russell sterilised this,” Jack says, which is what Mathew is thinking as Elia places a mug of tea and a plate of toast in front of him.

  “She said she did,” Elia says.

  “Did you check on the boy?” Jacks asks.

  “Still asleep,” Elia passes Mathew a plate and a mug. He eats and drinks greedily. “I hope he’s alright.”

  “What time is Russell coming?”

  “She said first thing.”

  “Good, because we’ll need her support to figure out what to do about these boys. Many in the village won’t like them being here.”

  “Not as broadminded as you, eh?” Elia glances at Mathew and he smiles from behind his cup. “They’ll be helpful when they find out Mathew wants to leave and take our news with him. Just like you were.”

  Jack grunts and says, “The patrol’s back. No drones, though. The Reapers must have shot them down last night. We may have a few days’ grace if they have to order some more.”

  “That’s good news,” Elia says. She says to Mathew, “We’re being ‘looked after’,” she does air speech marks, “by the security forces. They don’t have enough men to patrol the perimeter of the entire village, so they’re using drones. They can’t use robot soldiers safely on the ground because of the flooding, although they do have a ro
botic hound that can go through shallow water. One of the men from the village got out. It tracked him down and shot him.”

  “They’re not messing around,” Jack says. “You should have gone last night when you had the chance.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t. I’d rather he had to deal with the patrol than the Reapers,” Elia says.

  “There’s not much in it, though,” Jack says.

  The sound of feet on the floorboards in the hallway makes them all turn towards the door. “Hello?” a voice says. Dr Russell pokes her head around the door. “Door was open,” she says. “Hope you don’t mind? I let myself in.”

  “No, no. Of course,” Elia says, standing and kissing Dr Russell ‘hello’. Jack does the same.

  “Do you want some tea?”

  “No thanks, had some. How are you this morning, Mathew?”

  “Okay,” Mathew says.

  “He was woken by a crow,” Jack says.

  “It was a jackdaw,” Elia says. “The birds that live in the tree in the garden are jackdaws.”

  “A jackdaw?” Jack shakes his head as if this makes it even more remarkable. “Whatever it was, it got in through the broken window. It was sitting over him like he was a corpse. The boy here wrapped it in a blanket and put it outside.” Dr Russell raises her eyebrows, but Mathew can tell she’s thinking of something else. She says, “I’ll go and see the patient if you don’t mind. I have quite a full appointment card this morning.”

  “Yes of course, I’ll come with you,” Elia says, sucking the jam and butter off her fingers and pushing her chair back as she stands.

  Dr Russell digs around in her bag, “Oh and before I forget, Jack, here’s the candles I promised.”

  Jack holds up his hand, “I can’t take those.”

  “I insist,” Dr Russell says, bundling them into his arms. “Mathew, will you come with us, please? He may not remember us from the night before and if he wakes it would be better to see someone he recognises, or at least someone nearer his own age.”