Solace Within

by Gavin Zanker

  ‘I wish I was a dog sometimes,’ Leigh said. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about anything.’

  Glancing over, Aiden saw a deep frown on her face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t hold out on me, come on, spill it.’

  Leigh sighed. ‘When we escaped in the lorry, I saw someone get hurt.’

  ‘When we went through the gate?’

  Leigh nodded. ‘One of the police officers I think. He got knocked down and I didn’t see him get back up.’

  Aiden scratched his chin. ‘Well, we weren’t going that fast so I’m sure he’s fine.’

  ‘You don’t know that though.’

  ‘No, you’re right.’ Aiden could see that it was bothering her, but didn’t know how to make her feel better. ‘It was just… an accident, I guess. He didn’t get out of the way quick enough.’

  Leigh kicked a nearby plant sullenly. ‘Accident or not, I’m a murderer now.’

  ‘No,’ Aiden said firmly. ‘You didn’t kill anyone. I was the one driving, so if anyone got hurt then it’s on me, not you.’ He dropped to her eye level. ‘Hey, look at me. I know you wouldn’t kill anyone. Not unless they left you with absolutely no other choice. I know that. And you know that.’

  Leigh scrunched up the side of her face and nodded. ‘I suppose.’

  Aiden rose. ‘All right, problem solved then, so you can stop worrying.’

  They continued on, picking their way through the forest as Aiden left Leigh to her daydreams. He spotted some dead grass and sliced a handful away with his knife to use as kindling later. As he did, he realised he couldn’t hear Leigh’s footsteps anymore. He turned to see her crouched down, and he hurried back, worried something was wrong.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with tears, but said nothing. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  She turned away and Aiden followed her gaze to a tiny bird, no larger than a pine cone, huddled by the base of a tree. It sat, wings wrapped around itself, shivering violently with its eyes closed.

  ‘I think he’s hurt,’ Leigh said.

  Aiden glanced up at the thick boughs of the pine tree but saw no nest. He had no idea why the bird had fallen, but it would die soon enough to a fox or other predator.

  Leigh crawled closer to the bird, but it didn’t register her presence. She reached out and picked up the fragile creature with cupped hands.

  ‘It’s probably a lost cause,’ Aiden said, ‘you should just leave it be.’

  Leigh glanced down at the bird. ‘I just want to make sure he’s okay. I could look after him for a while.’

  ‘You want to keep hold of it? Birds shouldn’t be kept in cages, you know.’

  ‘I don’t want to keep him in a cage, I just want him to be okay. Once he’s better, I’ll let him go. Right now he needs help though, so I’m going to look after him.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ Aiden said, shaking his head and smiling. ‘You wouldn’t be Leigh otherwise.’

  AFTER TRAIPSING DEEPER into the forest for the better part of the day, Aiden felt himself growing more at ease. He was looking forward to returning home for a decent rest, and the prospect drove him to push on and ignore his aching muscles. He made a conscious effort to keep an easy pace though, not wanting to risk aggravating Hitch’s wound. Though the dog seemed to be showing signs of renewed energy over the last twenty four hours, often bounding away into the undergrowth, he had still lost most of his tail and Aiden didn’t want to take any chances. Leigh too was looking worse for wear as they travelled, limping slightly, probably from blisters. She had made no complaints since they left the city behind though, which impressed him.

  The trees were dense here, left to grow untouched since the Event which had plunged the world into darkness so quickly. No one ventured this far into the forest these days, and in the absence of humans, the wilderness had become home to an abundance of wildlife. Aiden had spent many years reading and learning the skills he needed to thrive here: hunting, trapping, growing crops, water filtration. Living alone in the forest took a lot of work, but it offered a level of privacy and security that he had found nowhere else. Even the dust storms rarely pushed this far north. He assumed it was something to do with the proximity to the mountains, but he had no real knowledge of weather mechanics.

  As Aiden stepped over a small brook that ran through a rocky gulley, he spotted more of his markings on the nearby trees and smiled. He called back Leigh, who was already trudging ahead on autopilot, and led her upstream, following the clear, cool water of the brook. They soon emerged into a large clearing where Aiden stopped. He studied the ground, relieved to see the place had remained undisturbed in his absence.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Leigh asked. ‘Why are we stopping?’

  ‘We’re home,’ Aiden said simply, as Hitch appeared from the undergrowth and looked to him with tongue lolling.

  Leigh looked around, puzzled. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  Aiden strode forward towards the screen of bushes and reached for the hidden knot he knew was there. Leigh jumped back in alarm, staring with her mouth open as a sheet of canvas covered with foliage fell to the ground to reveal the front of the house. Large, sloped windows lined the front of the low-roofed structure. The walls were covered in grass and ivy, and if not for the windows, the place could easily be mistaken for a small hill. Inside, lush green plants grew up against the glass.

  ‘Let me check inside,’ Aiden said as he walked up and opened the front door.

  Immediately, Hitch disappeared inside to find his bed. Aiden dropped his pack by the door and checked through the house until he was satisfied everything was as he had left it. He walked back along the corridor that served as a greenhouse, happy to see the automated irrigation system had held up in his absence. Reaching out he ran his fingers over the green leaves. Thyme, basil, tomatoes, potatoes, all of them growing strong. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the rich smell of soil and greenery.

  ‘This is your house?’ Leigh asked, poking her head through the doorway.

  ‘This is it.’ Aiden beckoned her to come inside. ‘It’s safe. Come and have a look around.’

  Leigh stepped inside, moving along the corridor with a mixture of exhaustion and amazement on her face. ‘You grew all these plants?’

  ‘I grow what I can. Enough to keep myself fed.’

  ‘Are those potatoes?’ Leigh asked. ‘Val tried to grow potatoes, but they were always tiny and some of them had worms in. No one would eat them except me.’ She stepped up to the plants and reached out to touch the leaves. ‘Why do you grow them inside?’

  ‘So I can keep them warm and protect them from bugs.’

  ‘It smells so… wonderful,’ Leigh said taking a deep breath. ‘No metal at all. Can I see the rest of the house?’

  Aiden smiled at her. ‘Sure, come on I’ll show you around.’

  He led her through the house. He had not built a mansion, but it was a comfortable size, and his muscles still ached at the memory of building it. Two bedrooms, the main living room, a shower room with flushing toilet, kitchen, the greenhouse in the corridor, and his workshop where he stored all of his gear along with the house’s water tank and electrical systems.

  Once he had given her a quick tour, they moved into the living room where Hitch was already snoring from his bed by the fireplace. Aiden stepped up to the small desk in the corner and tapped on the keyboard. The monitor came to life as the house’s systems booted, and he set some soft electronic music to start playing over the speaker on the bookshelf bowed from the weight of the piled books. Then he moved to the fireplace and sparked the already prepared wood to life.

  Leigh took off her fleece and sat by the growing flames, gently removing the rescued bird from her pocket and murmuring to the tiny creature as she cupped it in her hands.

  Aiden knelt by Hitch, peeling back the gauze to take a look at his wound. It seemed to be healing well,
with no strange smells or obvious signs of infection. He moved to his favourite armchair and slumped down into it, feeling the soft cushions relieve his aching muscles. He closed his eyes, letting the music and the sound of the wood crackling in the fire relax him.

  After a few minutes, he opened his eyes to see Leigh asleep already, curled up on the rug in front of the fire, the bird nestled into her hands. He rose from his seat with an unsuppressed grunt. He stretched and laughed to himself as he realised how old he was becoming, no longer able to pull himself out of a chair without making a noise.

  He walked over to Leigh and scooped her up from the floor, gently placing her on the sofa without fully waking her. He watched her for a moment. Against all of his best judgement, he had let this girl into his life. The decision had gone against all his years of experience, but it was the reason he was still alive. He carefully picked up the bird from her grasp, not wanting to see her accidentally roll onto it in her sleep. He wrapped it up in Leigh’s fleece and placed it near the fire, then he pulled the blanket down from the back of the sofa and draped it across Leigh’s small frame.

  With everyone already fallen into exhausted sleep, he walked back to the front door and locked it securely. The click of the lock gave him a rare feeling of safety that caused a warmth to spread through his limbs. He sighed with relief as he leaned his forehead against the door.

  Finally he was back home.

  He stretched his aching back, then dragged his pack along the floor into the workshop to clean his gear before he passed out himself.

  CHAPTER 22

  AIDEN WAS SPENDING the afternoon working in the greenhouse. Following James’ advice, he had managed to get more of the tomato seeds to germinate this time around and he was transferring the sprouting seedlings to soil when Hitch bounded past him, panting happily with Leigh giving chase. Hitch stopped for her to catch up, and just as she got her hands on him, he slipped out of her grasp and sprinted away again.

  ‘He’s so quick,’ she said, hands on her knees as she caught her breath.

  Aiden smiled as he watched Hitch jump around in circles, burning off energy. He had healed well over the last few weeks they had spent here, and he didn’t seem to miss his tail at all.

  ‘I noticed you’ve been drawing,’ Aiden said, turning his attention back to Leigh. He had found a pencil sketch of a tree on one of his notebooks earlier.

  Leigh nodded and smiled, showing her wonky tooth. ‘There’s so much time to draw when we’re not walking all day.’

  ‘On my notebook,’ Aiden said, his tone harder than he intended.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ Leigh asked, her expression falling. ‘I thought it needed some decoration.’

  ‘I don’t remember saying you could draw on my stuff. I thought you had that paper Sharon gave to you.’

  ‘I do, I just… Sorry, I thought you’d like it.’

  Aiden watched her face turn pale as she stared down at her feet. He was still irritated, but he knew she had meant no harm and he didn’t want her to beat herself up over it. ‘What are you doing with yourself now?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, her tone sullen, the wind gone from her sails.

  ‘Well make yourself useful and give me a hand planting these tomato seeds then,’ Aiden said, returning his attention to the seedlings. ‘You were there when we bought them, so you may as well help.’

  Leigh rolled up her sleeves and joined him without a word. He had been teaching her some of the gardening basics he had figured out over the years, and she had picked up the activity with some talent. She had a natural curiosity about the world that kept her always eager to learn new skills. With her help, they soon finished planting the seedlings.

  ‘Need anything else?’ she asked, wiping her hand across her forehead, leaving a smudge of soil.

  ‘No, that’s fine. Thanks for the help.’

  ‘No problem, I’m going out to find Hitch then.’

  ‘Don’t wander too far,’ Aiden warned. ‘There are plenty of caves around here and you’re getting a little too brave. I don’t want to have to come looking for you because you got stuck or lost.’

  ‘Yeah yeah,’ Leigh said, flashing him a cheeky smile as she ran outside.

  To Aiden’s surprise, he had really grown to enjoy her company. It definitely beat spending his hours here alone. Though she was young, Leigh was unlike any other kid he had met, understanding more of the world around her than most adults.

  He idly thumbed some soil through his fingers. He felt bad about snapping at her over the notebook and decided he would take her out shooting later. She had been asking to learn for a while now, and he figured she was mature enough to respect a firearm. He would set her up with something from his stash, something that matched her smaller hands.

  Aiden tidied the greenhouse, stacking away the plastic pots and sweeping the fallen soil, then he headed into the workshop. He still hadn’t gotten around to installing the fuses he had bought in the city. The house’s system had blown the last fuse a few weeks prior to his visit to Kiln Commons. He had switched to the backup battery, but he didn’t like operating the house’s electrical system without any backup. The nights were dark as pitch this far from any man-made lights, and he didn’t want to lose the convenience of things like hot running water and automated sprinklers for the greenhouse.

  He collected the fuses out of his pack and found the Project Solace decoder still zipped in there. He pulled it out and looked it over again, having almost forgotten about it at this point. Blanc had wanted this badly enough to kill, and yet he still had no idea what its purpose actually was. He shrugged and dropped it in a drawer then set to work on the electrical system. He could figure it out later.

  It didn’t take him long to install the new fuses and test the house’s systems. When he was satisfied everything was working, he flicked the electrics back to the main battery and headed into the living room. He grabbed an old fantasy novel from the heavy-laden bookshelf and stepped outside to get some fresh air.

  He found Leigh climbing one of the trees in the clearing outside the house. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, legs swinging as she perched on a thick branch.

  ‘You’ve been running around and climbing trees for hours,’ he said. ‘Don’t you ever get tired?’

  She shrugged. ‘I like it here.’

  ‘Well how about you help with lunch since you’re so full of energy? Then later, we’ll see about teaching you how to shoot.’

  ‘Really? You promise? Okay, what do you want to eat?’ She jumped down from the tree, sprawling to the dirt. ‘I’ll go make it right now,’ she said, picking herself up and running past him into the house.

  Aiden followed her into the kitchen to hear the sound of crashing pans. ‘Calm down, take a breath,’ he said, seeing her collecting fallen pots from the floor.

  ‘Sorry. I just want to make you something nice so you don’t change your mind.’

  ‘A bad meal won’t change my mind on whether you’re ready to hold a gun.’

  ‘So what do you want?’ she asked with a smile, a pan in each hand as she eagerly awaited an answer.

  ‘Surprise me. Just… don’t go crazy with the supplies.’

  Leigh stuck her head into the refrigerator, reappearing with an armful of vegetables. ‘I meant to ask you,’ she said. ‘You can grow and hunt all your food here, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Aiden said, flicking through the book as he leaned against the door frame. It followed a predictable formula, a lowly farm boy becoming a hero and saving the world, but Aiden never seemed to tire of the story.

  ‘So why do you ever leave this place? It’s so perfect here compared to the rest of the world. No one is around to hurt you or force you to do anything you don’t want.’

  ‘Hitch gets bored and tells me he wants to go for a walk,’ Aiden said idly, not looking up from his book.

  ‘Hitch can’t talk,’ she said sternly as she peeled a potato. ‘Don’t tease, come on, tell me.’ />
  Aiden contemplated the question. She was right of course, he had everything he needed here, so why did he leave? The more he thought, the more he struggled to pin it down to one simple reason. ‘Honestly?’ he said. ‘I don’t know myself. Maybe it’s just the painful memories I have in this place.’

  ‘You mean Kate?’

  Aiden looked up sharply. ‘How do you know that name?’

  ‘You talk in your sleep. Seemed like you were having a nightmare and you kept saying her name.’ Leigh turned away and ran a peeled potato under the tap before dropping it in a bowl. ‘So who is she?’

  Hearing no response, she turned back to see Aiden had gone. She shrugged, then returned to preparing lunch.

  ‘JUST THROUGH HERE,’ Aiden said, leading Leigh into his workshop. ‘I think you’ll like this.’

  He reached around behind a cabinet of tools and twisted the hidden lever, causing a section of the wall to pop out of place. He pushed the cabinet, swinging it back to reveal the hidden room.

  ‘Come on through then,’ he said as Leigh watched in astonishment. ‘Just don’t mess with anything. There’s a lot of dangerous stuff back here.’

  They stepped through the secret door into the hidden room. It was a natural cave, one of the reasons Aiden had chosen this spot to build the house. A series of electric LEDs flickered to life around the cave, illuminating a small waterfall which bubbled down the back wall into a clear pool. He didn’t spend much time here these days, it reminded him of how much Kate had loved this place. They had used it as their secret space, a refuge hidden away from the world. After she passed, he had converted the cave into an armoury. Now instead of laughter and intimacy, it housed weapons and firearms.

  Aiden moved to one of the lockers set against the wall and opened it, pulling down an old Smith & Wesson compact revolver for Leigh. It fired smaller .38 special rounds so the recoil would be manageable, and the hammer was shrouded inside the gun to reduce the profile and prevent accidents. He checked the condition, finding it still perfectly clean and oiled from when he had stored it years ago.