With a look of confusion adding to the childlike disappointment already etched on his face, Peter looked from Max to Jane and then to Fran, hoping that one of the two women could somehow make Brother Gregory change his mind.
‘The fisherman’s already gone out to do his work, Peter,’ said Fran, hoping to make him understand.
‘But Mr Gregory said,’ Peter began to protest.
‘Yes, Peter, I know what Brother Gregory said,’ said Jane, emphasising the word Brother in the hope it would help him remember to use it, ‘but the fisherman is obviously very busy, isn’t he… he needs to catch lots of fish to help feed all the people here.’
‘But…’ Peter started to say again, the nervous tugging on his earlobe increasing.
‘Peter… Peter, this is your home now… this is our home now,’ Jane continued, taking the young man’s chin in her hand to force him to look at her. ‘You’re going to have a whole lifetime to go out on that boat and help the fisherman if you want to… you… you can wait one more day, can’t you… hmm?’
‘I… I suppose,’ huffed Peter, chewing on his lip petulantly.
‘Anyway, I’m sure we can find something just as fun to do,’ offered Riley, noticing his father’s silent prompting to lighten Peter’s mood.
‘Hey, if I can borrow some rods, how about I show you and Riley how to fish for crabs off the harbour wall?’ suggested Dave, hopeful that he could not only distract Peter and Riley for a while but also give himself time to think of just how he was going to tell Max his news. ‘Would you like that, Peter?’
‘You’ll have to watch they don’t nip your nose with their claws,’ smiled Fran.
‘Yes,’ said Jane, jokingly tweaking Peter’s nose between her finger and thumb to pretend to have plucked it from his face, ‘you don’t want to be walking about with no nose, now, do you?’
‘Nip your nose,’ laughed Peter, covering his own nose with his hand as he reached over to pinch Jane’s in return, any disappointment suddenly forgotten by their new game. ‘Nip your nose, nip your nose!’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ grumbled Max, watching Peter joyfully dance from one foot to the other. ‘Do I really have to waste what time I’ve got left alive on this planet listening to this bullshit?’
‘No, Max, just until the tide turns,’ sighed Fran, turning to give him a bored blank stare.
As far as Fran was concerned Max had made just one too many comments to put it down to him being angry or upset about not being able to stay on the island. The man was clearly a pig and no matter what she said nothing would change that; he was simply beyond bothering with and quite frankly the sooner they parted company for good the better.
‘And then you’ll have a whole new set of bullshit to deal with… won’t you?’ she continued, reminding him that the moment he left the island his life would once again be a living nightmare from hell.
With a scowl contorting his features, Max glared at Fran and was about to open his mouth to say something in return when he noticed Kai and Tom had surreptitiously moved closer to her, their very presence a clear warning to keep his opinions to himself.
‘This is fucking bullshit,’ Max grumbled under his breath, shaking his head before angrily spitting out a mouthful of thick phlegm.
‘If you don’t mind, Mr Harper,’ sneered Brother Gregory, disapprovingly glancing toward the glob of spittle that had landed dangerously close to his shoe.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence under Brother Gregory’s judgemental glare, Max at last shrugged his shoulders and begrudgingly ‘harrumphed’ an apology.
Brother Gregory knew this was the best he could hope to get out of such a man and after giving Max one final critical glance, ‘tutted’, and began to walk off; once again sure in the assumption the others would simply follow him regardless.
***
The old black and white collie lay on the sun warmed cobbles, his head resting wearily upon his paws while he followed the movement of the scrawny chicken in front of him. Despite his hunger he knew better than to try to catch the feathery meal that pecked furiously among the cracks in search of its own sustenance, after all the old man had trained him well. Thinking of his old friend and master, the collie subconsciously sniffed the air checking for the special tell-tale smell that only his old man seemed to hold. A mix of wood smoke, fish and today something sweet and fruity filled the collie’s nose, letting him know the man was very close by. Lately there was also another smell about his old friend; a strange and yet hidden smell of wrongness that worried the dog on a deeply primal level. Just what it was he could not comprehend but he knew it made him anxious and caused him to want to stay close to his friend, just in case.
Suddenly a new scent came to him on the wind; a smell sparking memories full of interest and youthful excitement. Lifting his head up from his paws the old collie eagerly inhaled the recognisable odour of one of his own kind and instantly knew the female was close.
‘Looks like I was right,’ thought Brother Gregory as he rounded the corner and saw Frank White’s faithful collie rise swiftly to its feet, tail wagging. ‘He’s home.’
Knowing that the grumpy old fisherman rarely went anywhere without his equally belligerent dog by his side, it was a pretty safe bet that the old man was home; the soft wispy trail of smoke rising up into the clear blue sky only adding to this assumption and in fact if Brother Gregory hadn’t seen the smoke earlier he may not have had the idea to off load his impromptu tour guide duties on the old man at all. After all with Scott already out at sea, Rod partly incapacitated and presumably still recovering from his unexpected stay among the Corrupt, who better to show the group around their small harbour than a man who had worked these waters for over fifty years.
‘Frank, Frank White, are you there?’ called Brother Gregory, wary of the dog advancing towards him, despite its friendly appearance.
‘Another dog!’ cried Peter from behind him. ‘Look, Bella, another dog for you to play with.’
Glancing back at the group following in his wake, Brother Gregory gave Peter an irritated but brief disapproving look. It was clear Father Matthew had already taken a shine to the mentally challenged young man, his innocence a strange beacon to the man in these dark times and because of it Brother Gregory would have be mindful how he treated him, especially in Father Matthew’s presence.
‘Peter… I’m talking,’ Brother Gregory simply said, placing his finger to his lips to shush Peter’s excitable ramblings.
Mirroring Brother Gregory’s action, Peter tapped a finger repeatedly to his own smiling lips to show that he understood.
‘Thank you,’ Brother Gregory continued with a nod, before turning back just in time to side-step the collie as it trotted past him to make acquaintance with the Alsatian bitch.
‘And what do you want?’ said the old man slowly making his way through the open doorway, his frail looking hands clinging to the door surround for support.
‘Ah, Frank,’ Brother Gregory began, noticing and taking note of the way the old man moved, ‘I thought you may like to meet our new guests… some of them will be staying with us permanently.’
‘Is that so?’ the old man mused, his watery eyes moving from one face to the next. ‘Lucky them.’
‘You’ll have to forgive Mr White,’ said Brother Gregory, turning to address the group behind him, his features momentarily twisted by a clearly insincere smile. ‘He is yet to open his heart to Father Matthew and the Lord and accept the grace being offered him.’
‘Huh, I see Father Matthew gets top billing,’ whispered Fran to Kai. ‘Looks like God needs to get a better agent.’
Forced to hide his amusement behind a sudden cough, Kai glanced at the young woman stood beside him, her eyes full of sparkling mischief. Then, as his gaze drifted down to a soft mouth moulded into a playful smile, he knew that in that moment there was nothing in the world he wanted to do more than to pull her to him and feel the touch of her lips on his. Somehow as if she sensed
his thoughts, Fran’s smile slowly began to falter as she looked back at him, the mischief also gradually fading from her eyes only to be replaced by something else; something less definable yet ultimately more telling. For a few seconds they simply looked at each other, suddenly oblivious to the world around them as they stood close enough to touch, yet both unable to breach the chasm between them.
‘So that’s settled then,’ they both heard Brother distantly saying somewhere beyond the insular world they had momentarily created, ‘I’ll leave you in Mr White’s capable hands and after the evening meal someone will show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight…. Until then.’
Out of the corner of her eye Fran saw the figure of Brother Gregory briskly marching away, obviously keen to wash his hands of his troublesome charges.
‘We… we’d better get going,’ Fran managed to say, her words barely above that of a whisper despite the effort she felt to force them from her. ‘We don’t want to be left behind.’
‘No, we don’t,’ Kai softly replied, his stammer for once noticeable only by its absence.
‘Fran, I…’ Kai started to say, his words abruptly cut short by the throaty cough of someone trying to gain their attention.
‘You two coming?’ asked Tom, looking from Fran to Kai; a hint of amusement dancing behind the question.
‘What? Oh, yeah, sorry,’ replied Fran, noticing that in the brief moments she had become lost in Kai’s gaze the old fisherman had already started to slowly lead the rest of the group away.
‘Where’s he taking us?’ she continued to say, brushing an errant lock of hair behind her ear as she forced herself to step toward Tom and away from Kai.
‘The harbour,’ Tom replied, his eyes following her as she purposefully strode past him, his answer seemingly unimportant.
Looking back at Kai, Tom gave the young man a knowing smile.
‘W…What?’ said Kai, his mix of embarrassment and annoyance making him sound too much like a petulant teenager for his own liking.
‘Nothing,’ smiled Tom, holding his hands up innocently as he stepped aside to let Kai stomp past him.
‘You just took your time, lad… that’s all,’ he continued, his smile broadening as he realised thanks to his promise to help Roy later he wouldn’t be playing gooseberry between the young couple who had only just noticed that which had been blatantly clear to everyone else; namely that they were both interested in each other.
***
‘Don’t mind them,’ huffed Frank White, leaning on his cane as he waved with his free hand to the various silent and guarded faces watching the small group go by, ‘they’ll come round soon enough. Here, Jack!’ he continued, slapping his hand weakly against his leg, suddenly switching his attention to the black and white collie chasing Peter and the Alsatian merrily back and forth like a dog half his age. ‘You calm down now, you hear! Stupid dog… you’ll do yourself a mischief, you will.’
‘I… I don’t suppose you get to see many new people, Mr White,’ interrupted Dave, after nodding a silent but barely acknowledged ‘hello’ to a drawn woman watching them from the shadows of her cottage doorway.
‘If you’re staying,’ the old man began to reply, assuming that the man with his small family had not only been offered sanctuary but had chosen to accept it, ‘you might as well call me Frank…. But to answer your question about new people, no we don’t, not really, not anymore.’
‘Ah,’ said Dave, glancing at Jane for help in befriending the old man.
‘Well, not that get to stay anyway,’ Frank mumbled, pausing against a low wall to catch his breath while he looked knowingly over at Max and Tom.
‘Oh?’ asked Jane, only just catching the old man’s words.
‘We get enough visitors from time to time, alright,’ began Frank, pushing himself away from the wall as Jack appeared by his side, a long pink tongue lolling enthusiastically from the side of his mouth from the unexpected exercise and excitement, ‘but that sanctimonious git sends most of them back out into… into that horror… and with nothing more than some bull shit rules he made up himself as an excuse.’
‘You don’t sound like you think much of Father Matthew?’ suggested Jane, looking nervously toward her husband.
‘He’s a nutter surrounded by nutters that think the sun shines out of his arse… that’s what I think,’ grumbled Frank, scratching lazily at his white beard. ‘But I’ll say this much for the man, he saved a lot of people when the shit was really hitting the fan, so I guess his heart must’ve been in the right place once… it’s just where his mind is now that bothers me.’
‘Mr White… I mean, Frank,’ continued Jane, pausing out of habit to briefly to glance over her shoulder to make sure Riley was still close by, ‘you don’t strike me as a man who minces his words, surely Father Matthew, Brother Gregory and the others they… they must know you what you think of him.’
‘They do,’ Frank simply replied, gesturing with a nod for them to follow along a small alley leading away from the row of small cottages.
‘And yet they let you stay,’ commented Dave. ‘They haven’t forced you off the island.’
‘I may be outnumbered by Father Matthew and his ‘God squad’ but I’d like to see the bastards try to force me out,’ barked Frank, the determined glint beneath his wild bushy eyebrows giving Dave and Jane a hint of the man he once was.
‘So would I, Frank,’ laughed Dave, slapping an unexpectedly carefree and friendly hand on the old man’s back. ‘So would I.’
It was only as they made the short walk to the harbour that Dave realised, despite everything, an unexpected sense of relief was settling over him. He had spent much of the previous night awake, his thoughts in turmoil, trying to decide what to do for the best but even as his mind raced back and forth for a solution he knew he had but one choice, to stay on the island with Jane and his son. Stealing a glance to the woman next to him, her gentle face still tinged with an underlying worry noticeable only to his eyes, he wondered how he could even dare contemplate the leaving her. She was his world and while she existed he would fight to stay by her side, to stay on the island. Once he had realised and accepted this, an unknown sense of resolve had grown within him, allowing him to garner the strength he knew he would need for the stand to come. A line had effectively been drawn in the sand dividing his life in two; on one side he stood with his brother, weaker and browbeaten, while on the other he was free of the belittling and the countless demons of his past. For as much as Dave knew to abandon Max would be a painful and traumatic loss, it was a loss he was now willing to suffer, a loss well overdue and if Dave was truthful with himself, one he had secretly longed for his whole life. So as Frank White told the small group about daily life within the small enclosed harbour, Dave’s mind raced to find the right words to tell Max he was staying and more importantly to finally tell Max, goodbye.
***
‘Well, I can’t just sit here. I need to be doing something,’ said Tom, slowly rubbing the palms of his hands together as if to distract himself from the need to feel them wrapped about the handles of his curved blades once more. ‘I’m going to go back up to the gardens, find that Roy bloke and check out the cliffs with him.’
‘Oh, okay,’ said Fran, using her hand to shield the sun from her eyes as she looked up at Tom standing over her. ‘Be careful and… you know.’
Even though her words of warning went unfinished Tom knew what she meant, it was that forever present unspoken embarrassment that hung between him and his traveling companions that she referred to; the voices that dwelled in his head or rather how they totally consumed him when he was under their influence.
‘Yes, Fran… I know,’ he replied, giving Fran a reassuring smile and a wink.
It was only as his gaze flitted to Kai, the young man’s worry clearly evident in his dark eyes, that Tom felt his smile begin to falter.
‘I’ll be okay,’ he continued, his words aimed at Fran while his eyes stayed with Kai trying to push the p
oint home.
‘Oh, and Tom,’ said Fran, noticing the unspoken and not very subtle exchange happening between Kai and Tom, ‘we’re only going to be here for a few days… can you try not to piss off anyone else.’
‘Ah,’ replied Tom, at last breaking contact with Kai to look back at Fran. ‘Now you wouldn’t want me to make any promises I can’t keep.’
‘Tom, please,’ sighed Fran, knowing that whatever happened in the next few days trouble was likely to play a part in their short stay.
‘Alright, alright,’ chuckled Tom, backing away from the harbour wall where his two younger companions sat with their legs dangling over the edge, ‘I’ll try my best... is that good enough?’
‘You’ll try your best,’ echoed Fran, a raised eyebrow letting him know just how little she thought of his half-hearted compromise.
‘I’ll try my best,’ Tom repeated, his smile for Fran broadening as he shrugged his shoulders and took another two backward steps away from them, ‘promise!’
Laughing, Fran shook her head in exasperation.
‘If I get burned at the stake for any of your bullshit, Tom Butcher,’ she said, turning her back to him with a wave of her hand, ‘I’m gonna kill you!’
‘Well, I’ll see you both later in the refectory,’ Tom called back to them as she looked down at the gentle waves lapping against the side of the wall a metre or so below her feet.
Despite the soft hypnotic rhythm of the water Fran couldn’t help but notice in her peripheral vision Kai watching Tom’s departure.
‘He means it you know,’ she said, leaning forward slightly to run her fingertips across a cluster of small glossy black shells attached the wall just along the high tide line.
‘S…sorry?’ said Kai, at last letting his gaze drop from Tom’s back to focus on Fran.
‘Tom,’ she replied, turning her head to look at him and suddenly becoming very aware that they had been left alone, ‘he’ll… he’ll try his best not to lose himself.’
‘Try his b…best?’ said Kai shaking his head, his concerned gaze subconsciously dropping momentarily to her lips. ‘This isn’t s…something he can c…control, Fran. His mind is b…broken.’
Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel Page 20