by Jon Grahame
As a further precaution, Reaper mapped a route south to be taken once a week. The possibility of a threat from that direction remained at the back of his mind, and he wanted warning if anyone started scouting north or heading their way in strength. The route he chose followed the A64 past York and Tadcaster, eventually joining the M1.
The motorway contoured round the edge of Leeds before heading directly south, cutting a corridor through the countryside past Wakefield, Barnsley, Sheffield, Chesterfield and Mansfield to Nottingham, which Reaper judged was far enough. Here, they would turn off, below the city, and thread their way along the A52, eventually joining the A1 at Barrowby near Grantham. This dual carriage highway would then take them north, skirting Worksop, Doncaster, Pontefract and Castleford, until they completed an elongated oval, and linked again with the A64.
Both highways were self-contained and skimmed conurbations rather than drove through town or city centres. They were highways where Reaper felt they would be reasonably safe. The cross-country roads between the M1 and A1 would be taken carefully. Two teams went for safety: one travelling a hundred yards ahead of the other in case of anything unexpected.
On the first trip, Reaper drove the lead car with Sandra beside him. Keira and Yank were in the second car. They were well down the M1 when they saw the sort of smoke that came from a controlled fire. A sign said that Trowell Services were ahead. As they approached, a homemade sign said: TRADE.
Reaper took the slip road cautiously into the complex of what had been restaurants, bathrooms and petrol pumps. Sandra lowered the window and held the carbine in her arms at the ready. Her seat had been pushed back to allow for such a manoeuvre. A few abandoned vehicles littered the car park. There was no sign of life in the shops or fast food outlets, which were remarkably free of damage. The sign outside said Costa, Burger King, M&S. A pedestrian walkway led across the motorway.
‘The smoke is on the other side,’ she said.
‘I’ll try the petrol pumps,’ Reaper said.
As he turned in the direction of the rows of pumps, they saw another sign that pointed towards a service lane. It said: TRADE. He stopped before entering the pumps and looked back. The second car had stopped at the entrance to the car park and was waiting for his lead.
Sandra said, ‘What’s that?’
She got out, carbine at the ready, and walked to the pumps. Yet another sign, attached with string, had blown in the wind and had become stuck the wrong way round. She turned it, stood back and pointed so Reaper could see. The sign said: HELP YOURSELF. She got back in the car.
‘Do we go across?’ she said.
‘I think we do.’
He waved Keira and Anna forward. When they were level, he said, ‘We’ll drive over. Stay here and stay alert.’
The service lane led back the way they had come, to a bridge that crossed the motorway. On the far side, a farm was off to their right along a track. The lane then led down into the service buildings on the northbound side of the highway. They drove against the traffic flow, if there had been any, past more petrol pumps that also had a sign that said HELP YOURSELF. A brazier stood alone, not so much burning as producing the drifting smoke they had seen. On this side, there was also a motel.
They stopped outside the front of the main buildings. The same franchise signs were displayed. The doors were wide open and a man in his sixties walked out into the sunshine. He wore a straw boater and a large moustache as if he’d fallen off a seaside postcard. He was rotund in check trousers, white shirt and a waistcoat.
‘Good morning!’ he called.
‘Good God,’ muttered Sandra.
They got out of the car, carbines at the ready, scanning empty vehicles and buildings for possible danger.
‘It’s all right,’ said the jolly man, for he had not yet stopped grinning. ‘You’re quite safe. I’m Percy Radcliffe.’ He turned and shouted. ‘Martha! Visitors!’
‘I’m Reaper.’
They shook hands and the man’s eyebrows went up and his grin froze and he stared at Sandra.
‘I’m …’ she began.
‘The Angel,’ he said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Reaper and the Angel. You have to be. There can’t be two Reapers.’
Reaper and Sandra glanced at each other.
‘You know us?’ said Reaper.
‘I’ve heard about you. Stories are prime currency now we don’t have TV and radio.’
‘You’ve heard about us?’
‘From travellers. Some who were there, some who just heard the stories.’
‘What stories?’ said Sandra.
‘The stories about the Grim Reaper and the Angel of Death … The Battle of Haven … The Mad Dog Shootout …’
Because they hadn’t reacted in the way he expected, Percy Radcliffe now looked distinctly nervous in case he had offended them. Sandra’s mouth had fallen open with surprise. A woman came out of the building behind Radcliffe. She looked about the same age, was tall and ungainly and reminded Reaper of someone he couldn’t quite place. She was also smiling.
‘Welcome,’ she said. ‘I’m Martha.’
They shook hands with her, too, and this time Reaper said, ‘I’m Reaper, this is Sandra.’
‘Not the Reaper?’ she said, and she looked again at Sandra and added, ‘And so young.’
‘Please, please,’ said Radcliffe. ‘Come and have a cup of coffee.’
He led the way inside and Reaper and Sandra split and went in different directions. They checked out the building, first and second floors. Sandra went to the pedestrian way across the motorway. Someone was hiding at the far end and she levelled the carbine, only to lower it again when the ducking head re-emerged and she saw it was Keira.
‘If that smoke is a barbecue,’ shouted Keira, ‘Yank wants a double cheeseburger and fries.’
‘Yank will be lucky.’
‘Are we clear?’
‘Give me a minute.’
She went down the stairs and met Reaper by an arcade of dead gaming machines.
‘Keira’s on the walkway. Are we clear?’
‘Clear.’
‘I’ll tell them to come over.’
She went back up the stairs. Keira was waiting.
‘No fries but tell Yank she can have a menu as a souvenir. Come on over.’
Sandra found Reaper seated in what had been the Costa coffee shop. Martha was behind the counter making coffee at a machine that spluttered and gurgled in a way she hadn’t heard in more than a year.
‘We have a generator,’ said Radcliffe. ‘I was telling Reaper. And real coffee.’
‘What would you like, dear?’ said Martha.
‘A cappuccino would be wonderful,’ she said.
Footsteps heralded the arrival of Yank and Keira, who stopped in surprise at the sight of a fully working coffee machine.
‘Jeez,’ said Yank. ‘Now there’s a sight.’
‘An American?’ said Martha. ‘How nice. What will you have ladies?’
‘I’ll have a three shot Americano with milk,’ said Yank.
‘You’ll be awake all night,’ said Keira. ‘Could I have a mocha?’
‘And an Irish girl? Oh, this is a cosmopolitan morning, Percy.’
When they were all served, Sandra took her drink outside to keep watch, sitting on top of a picnic table with her feet on the bench. The others relaxed and exchanged stories. They told the odd couple about Haven, the place they had only heard of as a myth and a legend. Reaper steered the conversation and there was no further mention of the Grim Reaper and the Angel of Death.
Percy Radcliffe and Martha Brown had met at the services the year before, towards the end of summer. He had been in insurance in Leicester and she had worked in a wool shop in Leeds. He had lost a wi
fe, son and grandson, and she had lost her cat when she left her home in a hurry, driven out by out of control fires and gangs on the rampage. They had arrived at the service station by different routes and within one week of each other.
‘People had it before we came,’ Radcliffe said. ‘They lived here, tried to trade the petrol. There were five of them. Four men and a woman. It led to arguments. I was here three days, sleeping in my car because I had no fuel to go any further, when some travellers shot them. Blasted them with shotguns. The men had fought back and killed one of them. So that was five bodies. The woman went off with those who were left. That’s when I put the signs up: Help Yourself. Who needs killing over a gallon of petrol?’
Martha said, ‘I arrived the next day. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular. I was so desperate, I’d have taken a barn for the winter. But I met Percy. He was burying the dead. Sleeves rolled up and digging graves. I thought that was the mark of a decent man, so I helped him. There was food here. The place was never properly looted. I suppose those passing through would have supplies and assume this place had been stripped. And we went out a few times to stock up. We put the signs up to attract people. That’s why we sometimes light the fire. Smoke attracts. We’re no threat to anyone and most people on the road these days are just people. The gangs have mainly gone, although you have to be careful.’ She smiled, self disparagingly. ‘Even I have to be careful.’
‘The winter wasn’t too bad,’ Radcliffe said. ‘There’s still fuel and we ran the generator when it got very cold. Few people travelled in the winter. People stop, others come to trade. Locals. They tell us what they’ve got and we match up who has what, with who wants what. It’s all very civilised.’ He laughed. ‘So to speak.’
Yank left the group to relieve Sandra and Reaper asked about local groups. Radcliffe said they were mainly small and peaceful and living on farms and in villages, although there was a larger group based at Nottingham University.
‘Maybe fifty or sixty,’ he said. ‘They’ve cultivated the land. Dug allotments and have goats and hens. They’re trying to make a go of it.’
‘You mean professors, students?’ Sandra said. Academics to boost Haven’s ‘Brains Trust’, were always in demand.
‘No, dear,’ said Martha. ‘I think they’re mainly townies from Nottingham. But they’re doing their best.’
‘Do you have market days?’ Reaper asked.
‘Tuesdays and Saturdays,’ said Radcliffe. ‘Although who can keep track of days? Every three days and four days. And we can make deals for people outside those times, as well, except that people like to socialise. See how the other half are getting on. Swap stories. There’s a big demand for stories now there’s no TV and radio. Prime currency.’
Reaper asked if they had any news from down south and the couple exchanged a look before Martha said, ‘We don’t get many travellers from London, if that’s what you mean. I mean, if you wanted to get out of London where would you go? I don’t think many would head for the Midlands. They’d go into the Home Counties, or the West Country or the South Coast. And real travellers, I mean those going all the way to Scotland, or even Yorkshire, they would have filled their petrol tanks before they left and wouldn’t want to break their journey too soon. No, we get wanderers, rather than travellers. Mind you …’
Radcliffe said, ‘We have heard of a place called Redemption near Windsor. Very organised. Too organised, for some. A sort of government. Lots of soldiers. They say Prince Harry is there, but that just sounds like wishful thinking. They have checkpoints stopping people going in and coming out. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or bad. The people who told us haven’t actually come from there. They’ve been nearby and picked up the rumours.’
Martha said, ‘And then there’s that lot from Sheffield. We don’t know what to make of them.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Reaper.
‘We’ve only heard one or two stories. A big group, moving across country. They left Sheffield – everybody seems to be leaving the cities – and seem to be heading vaguely south. Apparently they don’t like old folk.’ She gave a grin. ‘So I don’t suppose we’d be popular.’
They promised to call again and made their goodbyes. The odd couple would do very nicely as an intelligence outpost and, next time they called, they would bring trade goods.
As they rejoined the motorway to drive south, Reaper said, ‘Joyce Grenfell.’
‘What?’ said Sandra.
‘That’s who Martha reminded me of. The actress, Joyce Grenfell.’
‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘You’re too young. Remember the black and white St Trinian’s films?’
‘Vaguely, from wet Sunday afternoons.’
‘She was in those.’
Sandra did not seem impressed.
‘What was all that about Reaper and the Angel? The Battle of Haven? The Mad Dog Shootout?’
‘It means we have become legend, my little Angel.’
‘Don’t talk bollocks.’
‘Language, Angel.’
‘And don’t call me Angel. How did that happen?’
‘Like the man said, without TV and radio, people are talking to each other again and storytellers are in demand. Someone produced a good story – a battle of good and evil – and it will be passed on, getting bigger and no doubt more gory in the telling. We’ve had people leave Haven. They probably started it. Or the people who escaped Tyldesley. Some of them went south. Once told, it will just rumble on like Chinese Whispers.’
‘Chinese Whispers?’
‘A message that gets more distorted the more it’s passed on. Like the old story from the First World War. An officer told a private at the front to pass on a message for the generals in the rear. Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance. By the time it had been passed all the way down the line and reached HQ, miles away from the muck and bullets, it had become, send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.’
Sandra laughed and then the laughter subsided. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
‘There were a lot of bodies, Reaper.’
‘I know.’
‘The Angel of Death. I’m not sure I like that.’
He reached out and squeezed her knee.
‘We won’t tell anybody.’
They saw signs of settlements, as they skirted Nottingham University and took the A52 through the countryside towards Grantham. They didn’t stop or make any detours. They could leave that for later trips. But the homemade sign they saw on the A1, on the outskirts of the village of Cromwell, did make them stop: The Tea-Riffic Cafe.
The sign was made from a long piece of hardboard with the words written in red paint. The cafe was a caravan, with plastic seats and tables outside, that was parked on a slim triangle of grass made by the northbound lanes of the A1, and the road that joined it from the village. Two people were sitting outside in the sunshine beneath a green parasol.
Reaper, driving the lead car, slowed from the sixty miles an hour they had been travelling, to almost a walking pace. The two people, a man and a woman, got to their feet, smiles on their faces. The woman waved.
He stopped the car twenty yards short of them in the outside lane and noted in the rear view mirror that Keira and Yank in the second car had stopped 100 yards behind. They surveyed the immediate scene and surroundings. The woman was elderly, grey hair, an apron over a grey dress, sensible flat shoes. She waved again. The man was much younger, maybe still in his twenties, he wore a suit and tie, the three buttons of the jacket buttoned. His smile and demeanour showed no guile and spoke only of innocence. He looked a victim of a different kind, or maybe he was blessed; a human being without blame, guilt or malice.
‘Looks clear to me,’ Sandra said.
‘Let’s go see what’s on the menu.’
Reaper drove into the nearside lane and stopped a few yards past the tables and chairs. The man remained where he was but the woman followed them. Sandra got out, the carbine at the ready, but the woman was not perturbed. Reaper, slung his carbine over his shoulder and joined them.
‘I’m Maisie Day,’ said the woman, her eyes sparkling. ‘This is Brian.’ She turned and saw that the young man hadn’t moved and motioned him forward. ‘He’s not all there,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t all there before the plague, but it didn’t help. He’s a good lad and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. If we had a goose, which we haven’t. Never did have, as far as I recall. Anyway, it’s good to meet you.’ She held out a hand. ‘We don’t get many customers.’
Sandra shook her hand, while still assessing the situation. Reaper was doing the same.
‘I’m Sandra,’ she said.
‘Reaper,’ Reaper said, also shaking hands.
‘Now there’s a strange name,’ Maisie Day said. ‘Where have I heard that before?’
Sandra offered her hand to Brian who shook it with a formal flourish and a big grin. He did the same with Reaper.
‘Are your friends joining us?’ Maisie said. ‘We can offer you tea,’ and she pointed at the sign, ‘which is tea-rific – that was my idea. The leisure industry is reliant on marketing.’ She nodded to herself, as if confirming a chapter heading. ‘And we have a Dish of the Day. Get it? Maisie Day?’ She laughed and Reaper smiled. Sandra went with Brian to the caravan. She glanced inside and looked back at Reaper and confirmed it was clear. ‘Which is stew,’ Maisie said. ‘Which is also terrific.’
‘Sounds good, Maisie,’ Reaper said, and waved the second car forward.
Keira and Yank stopped the Rover short of the caravan and took a scouting trip round the back. They went up the access road and checked out a house and outbuildings, before joining them and being introduced. Brian beamed at the presence of three attractive young women.