by Sarah Govett
Megan shunted over, closer to me and wrapped her left arm round me, wincing from her cut as she did so. Up close I could see a film of sweat on her face. It came as a shock to see how much the battle had drained her.
Megan lowered her voice and softened it at the same time.
‘Just try to concentrate on the task on hand.’ There was a long pause and I thought that would be it, the limit of our conversation, when she spoke again, this time contemplatively. Almost as much to herself as to me.
‘Killing people shouldn’t be easy. It might be necessary. But it shouldn’t ever be easy. It’s the ones who find it easy you have to worry about.’
Then she told me all about how she and her brother, Simon, had come to join the Opposition. How it was after they’d seen her mum, a writer, dragged away in the middle of night for writing the wrong sort of book. She’d never been returned. And how hard Megan had found it to start with – the hiding, the fighting … the killing.
‘You get tougher. It’s like you develop a kind of armour that lets you get through it.’ Her face grew thoughtful. ‘But if you wear the armour too much, it’s really hard to take it off again, to be soft again.’ With that she glanced over at Jack, who was sleeping fitfully nearby.
‘He loves you, you know,’ I said following her gaze. And with that the armour slipped slightly, and her face lit up before clouding over again.
‘You’re strong, Noa. Stronger than you think. If I need to go away, look after them for me, OK. Jack and Lotte.’
I edged away from her. How could she even think about it? We needed her to lead our team. It would kill Jack if she abandoned us. Had that been her plan all along, get us to rescue Lotte and destroy the Raiders then send us off to the Fence alone while she returned to the Fort to drill her army? Just when I thought she could be trusted. Was one of the good guys.
When it was my turn to rest, I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t stop thinking about the psycho and what he’d done and might still do. Couldn’t block out the faces of the men and women behind me with their eyes permanently closed. Couldn’t stop thinking about whatever Megan was planning and how she was going to break Jack’s heart.
When Raf had suggested disguising ourselves in the Raiders’ clothes, it’d sounded fun, exciting. Like we were all going to embark on a kind of mad fancy dress adventure. Turns out stripping clothes from dead and bloodied bodies isn’t a laugh a minute. During the six or so hours that we’d rested, rigor mortis had kicked in and the bodies had frozen into position. We had to edge the clothes down and over stiffened limbs. Human mannequins where the joints don’t work. The eyes were the worst. I’d imagined them closed but that was wrong. That only happens if you brush the eyelids down at time of death. No one had done that so the eyes were frozen open and stared emptily at the dawn. It’s horrible how empty a dead body looks. The difference between a bare flat and a home. And if you don’t believe in God – that spark, that occupying energy, where has it gone?
Megan sent Lotte back to the Fort with Lara as protection. One of our best fighters gone. But there was no possibility of Lotte coming further – she needed rest, comfort, sleep. It was clearly tearing Megan apart, sending Lotte away, not being the one to protect her, but she also knew that our mission stood the best chance of success with her at the helm. For how long though? Would she give us any warning before she left?
We didn’t have a spade or anything to bury our three dead. We placed them next to each other and covered them with a mound of twigs. There was no time to search for sea lavender or white stones to add to the mound. Instead we stood solemnly round the makeshift ‘grave’ and one by one swore, ‘Your death will not be in vain.’
Well all of us, except Jack. I scanned the area. Where was he?
I asked Raf and Lee, but they had no idea. Hadn’t spotted his absence. Just when I was starting to freak out a bit, he reappeared – with a stomp and a crash and a baa.
He was covered in sweat, grinning widely and had a sheep tucked under each arm. His grin seemed to massively clash with the surrounding solemn faces – an out-of-tune instrument in an orchestra. But there was something so compelling about it and something so truly ridiculous about the sight of Jack as a struggling shepherd that it broke through the tension and the grief and we were all infected by manic grins and at least some of the pent-up emotion was released.
‘I thought if we’re meant to be Raiders we’d need to have some spoils to show for it!’
He’d searched the woods for the stolen sheep and managed to tackle them, rugby-style to the ground.
Raf was positively open-mouthed and Jack saw and laughed.
‘Admit it,’ Jack joked. ‘I’m a better hunter than you.’
Raf’s mouth seemed to go into a spasm, and I was thinking, ‘Oh No! Not another showdown,’ when he actually burst out laughing.
‘OK. OK. I admit it.’
God, maybe they’re going to end up best mates. Or I was right before and they’re secretly gay.
Megan kicked the last Raider from sitting to upright. Time to go.
‘Take us to your base,’ she ordered. He got to his feet and jerked his head. It was clear enough that he wanted us to remove his gag but that wasn’t happening. Megan kicked him again. ‘Let’s go.’
And so off we set, the psycho flanked by four of us at all times, knives permanently drawn. I suppose he could have led us anywhere. Drawn us away from the Raiders’ base to protect the rest of them. But part of me knew he wouldn’t do that. I guess I sensed he’d revel in the thought of more fighting, more bloodshed. And I felt he wasn’t a great one for loyalty. No honour among thieves and all that.
We were a gruesome-looking bunch. Old leather and canvas clothes smeared in a mixture of blood and mud. Mine drowned me. Raf looked at me and smiled. Not quite the wolf grin but a husky smile at least.
‘Looking hot, Noa Blake.’ And I laughed and the sensation felt strange and good at the same time.
Jack looked even more ridiculous – his clothes were far too small – that, and he was in amateur shepherd mode with these two massively woolly animals at his side.
We were out of the wood and heading towards the hill we’d seen in the distance before. Heading into the hornet’s nest.
We approached from the east with the sun behind us. In poetry having the sun behind you tends to mean you’re on the side of ‘good’, ‘God’ or what’s ‘right’. We weren’t going in for symbolism. Having the sun behind you also means your enemy has to squint and can’t make you out as clearly. Can’t make out detailed faces. Just figures, clothes, a general outline.
That’s what Raf had said anyway. And he’s super-sharp and it sounded right so we went with it. Once we drew nearer and the psycho had, through nods and hand gestures, double, triple-confirmed that we were approaching the right settlement – that’s the route we took. Megan kept consulting her compass and it meant we had to wade through some deeper salt pools before we were up again on the right stretch of higher ground. The ground was generally pretty swampy, apart from two raised routes to the settlement – one from the east, the one we were taking, and one from the south-west. I guess that’s one of the reasons the Raiders chose this hill – they could control access pretty easily and there’d be fewer random passers-by. That or they settled here and then found that the land was too wet for foraging or growing anything so they were forced to steal from others. That was Raf’s suggestion but I don’t buy it – don’t want to buy it anyway. I can’t accept that previously good people could do such evil things. That’s not the sort of world I want to believe in.
In the distance we could make out the faint tolling of a bell.
‘What’s that?’ Megan turned to the psycho.
He laugh-mumbled something back. Angrily she reached for her knife. I thought she was going to kill him then and there. Maybe he’d served his purpose. But she didn’t. she roughly cut the gag from his mouth.
‘That sound?’ she repeated.
‘A bell
,’ the psycho replied, looking like he was going to topple over at his own hilariousness.
Megan kicked him in the leg and held the knife closer.
‘OK, OK … it’s a warning bell, obviously. They’ve spotted us.’
Megan turned to face Raf. ‘I thought you said they wouldn’t be able to tell?’
‘It’s probably just a precaution.’ Raf sounded more confident than he looked.
The psycho was off again. ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, mo … which way shall we go?’
‘Forward,’ barked Megan and on we went.
My heart was pounding as we marched. The idea of surprising the remaining Raiders kind-of-Trojan-horse style made me feel pretty sick but the idea of straight attacking them made me want to crawl into a hole and hide. Again, we didn’t know how many we would be dealing with. The leader I’d seen when they attacked the Peak hadn’t been in the party we’d killed so presumably he’d be there. And he’d need others to guard their prisoners. So best guess, they’d split their force. Nineteen out to attack, a similar number back at base.
In what seemed like no time at all we were close enough to see the settlement’s perimeter fence, see its tin shacks sprawled over the hill.
The bell stopped tolling.
Megan kicked the psycho again.
‘Well?’
‘We’ve passed,’ the Psycho smiled. ‘The lookout’s “recognised” us.’ His smile stretched into a grin that ripped his face apart. I’m sure he has more than the normal number of teeth. Like a shark. Or this little girl in my block … my parents’ block … whose grown-up teeth grew in before her milk teeth fell out so she ended up having a freaky-looking double row of teeth. Horrific.
I looked at Megan. Wasn’t now the time to kill him?
She read my mind. ‘And have the lookout see? That might ruin our disguise, don’t you think?’
I’m a denser.
‘Go first!’ Megan ordered the psycho, her knife pointed into his ribs. ‘One wrong move or sound, my knife will be in your heart.’
‘Sounds like a date,’ he sniggered back.
Sounds were intensified – it must have been the adrenalin. My boots crushing the tufting grass, the wind in my ears, the sound of the fence being peeled open.
‘Welco …wh!!’ The sentry’s last words, if you can call them that, before Megan choked him to death.
We were in.
There was no time to pause, to think, we had to press on. Megan took us up what seemed to be the main route through the settlement. Maybe we should have split up, maybe things would have gone down differently if we had, but I think she knew, at that moment, that on our own we were fragile – physically and mentally, it was only the group that gave us strength. We thought we’d be meeting Raiders individually as we walked. That we’d be able to pick them off one by one as they emerged from their shacks or went about doing whatever Raiders do when they’re not out ravaging.
This was the case for the first three we met. First a huge guy who looked liked he’d missed out the last few stages of evolution stumbled out of a rusted door to the left. You could see the emotions register on his face. Smile – welcoming back his comrades; confusion – these aren’t my comrades; blank – Lee’s dagger stopping his heart. The next two were pretty much the same although they were more fully evolved. Megan killed the second and Jack the third. We had to wait for a few minutes after while he retched over and over as he re-hilted his knife. No one even asked me to help. I am useless. I can’t do this.
All the time I had my hand gripped on my knife, my adrenaline now spiking so much that my right eyeball would occasionally shake. We were heading to the centre of the settlement. To its heart.
We came to another crossroads of sorts and Lee, now at the front, gave a sharp hand signal – halt. He scouted ahead to peer round the corner to the left. Seconds later he re-emerged.
‘The left path opens out into a central square area. There’s a meeting going on. A youngish guy, with long dreadlocked hair is alone at the front so he seems to be leading it.’
The Leader. Horrible flashbacks came of him at the Peak. Burning buildings, knife to Annie’s throat.
‘He didn’t see me,’ Lee continued. ‘And the rest have their backs to us.’ Big swallow. ‘Megan?’
Megan nodded slowly. ‘This is it.’ We were assigned roles. Close combat fighters were going to fan out and attack first. Raf and I were on slingshot duty – we’d provide longer-range cover and pick off Raiders trying to escape. I dropped to the floor and filled my pockets with stones, bits of metal, anything I could use.
My breath was shallow gasps and I tried desperately to deepen it. To calm mind and body. To Zen in with my weapon. I visualised the air as a cool drink and tried to take deep gulps.
‘What about him,’ Jack asked pointing at the psycho.
Everyone turned to stare at him. He’d been so uncharacteristically quiet since we’d entered the settlement that we’d all forgotten he was even there. We should have killed him when we killed the other three.
Registering our surprise, and most likely our murderous intent too, the psycho smiled and pegged it off back down the path we’d come up. Jack made to follow him but Megan pulled him back.
‘No. We keep going. We don’t know how long this meeting will go on. This might be our only window. He’s gone the other way. His arms are bound – how much damage can he do?’
After a re-brief of the plan we were ready, as ready as we were going to be.
Three chopping hand movements followed by a point. Megan’s ‘go’ signal.
And then we were running. Round the corner, into the square. The Leader was the only one facing us so it was his bellow of rage and confusion that caused the others to all turn round. Too late. We were already on them. One Raider tried to escape to the right and I fired off a large grey piece of rubble to bring her down. Another was coming up behind Megan and I floored him too. It was scarily easy to hurt people from a distance. The Leader had pulled two cruel looking curved daggers from his belt – maybe these guys are never completely unarmed – and started swinging them around. He was jumped by Lee and two others and disappeared under a tangle of flailing limbs.
The situation had become too complex now for our slingshots to be of any more use. Everyone was so close together it was impossible to ensure that you were going to strike foe rather than friend. Teeth chattering, I pulled out my knife and stared at the fray, searching for an entry point. Then my mind started to tick. Something was wrong. Something was missing. What was it? Suddenly it dawned. The psycho wasn’t here. Why hadn’t he come back? Why would someone who got off on pain and killing avoid a scene like this? Maybe if it meant he got to deliver a bit of uninterrupted hurt all by himself.
The prisoners.
I ran to Raf, tugging at his sleeve. ‘I think he’s gone for the prisoners.’
I didn’t need to explain who ‘he’ was, or justify myself, Raf just got it.
‘Come on,’ he hissed, pulling me towards one of the Raiders we’d brought down. She was bleeding heavily but still breathing.
‘Where do you keep the prisoners?’ Raf demanded. When she didn’t respond immediately, he pressed down on her wound until she cried out.
‘Where?’
‘In the yellow building,’ she gasped, ‘Just up from the gate.’
I remembered it. We’d passed it on the way. The way the psycho had returned to. Everyone was caught up fighting, there was no one to check in with, to let know. We took an executive decision. We ran.
Being right isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The yellow building was unlocked, or rather the lock had been forced and now hung lifeless from its chain. We pushed our way inside. The building had no windows and it took a few seconds for our eyes to adjust to the dim light before we saw them. Huddling at the back, in the dark, was a group of young girls, chained and dirty with desperate eyes. In front of them, arms no longer bound, stood the psycho. His now free hands were be
ing used to pin a young girl of no more than 14 to a wall, a fleshy, unwanted necklace. Our eyes adjusted some more and I realised I knew her. I recognised the white hair. The pale, heart-shaped face.
Cara.
‘No!’ A guttural sound. I didn’t recognise my own voice as I sprang forward. Raf, trying to protect me, pushed me back and I fell as he rushed forward, knife drawn.
The psycho, turned to watch us, his eyes glittering with amusement. He let Cara drop to the ground, as Rex used to discard a stick he’d tired of. Raf approached, making tentative swipes with his knife but the psycho just seemed to be able to pat his arms away. A minor irritation. Then, as if wanting to end this tiny nuisance, the psycho put all his weight into a punch aimed at Raf’s head. Blood spurted from Raf’s nose like a volcanic eruption and then there was a crack as his skull made contact with the stones. His eyes rolled in his sockets and then closed, but all I could think about was the CRACK. It was like in the road safety advert. The one they used to play all the time before most people had to give up their cars. The one where the malc teenager is looking at his scribe instead of the traffic and is hit by a car in slow motion. The guy’s head cracked as it hit the pavement. The teen in the advert died.
Breathe, breathe. Focus. This wasn’t over.
The psycho calmly bent down to pick up the dropped knife. And then he walked over to Raf’s unconscious form.
‘Stop!’ I yelled, my lungs cracking. ‘Stop! Leave him. He’s … nothing. It’s me you want. Come to me. I want you to come to me.’
The psycho looked over, distracted. But that wasn’t enough – I needed him to move. Preferably to run. Otherwise it wouldn’t work.