by Rick Wood
He stood, muddied and disgruntled, and Cia turned back to Boy, smiling at him reassuringly.
They were gaining distance. They were getting further away.
“Just a little further,” she told Boy.
Another glance showed Dalton’s silhouette disappearing into the distance.
His state of mind had gone. She didn’t know him anymore. His madness was fuelling his rage, but it was also fuelling his recklessness. This wouldn’t last long, she knew, he was a good fighter because of his instinct – but his immediate hostility was granting them enough luck that they could almost escape his sight.
They ran a little further, then a little further still.
Then they began to slow.
Boy was wheezing. He was trying so hard, powering forward, but he was struggling, and she knew his body wouldn’t physically allow him to go on running much further.
Ahead she saw a fallen tree trunk, thick, branches surrounding it.
If they could get under that…
She came to a stop, as did Boy. She bowed over and placed her hands on her knees, unable to breathe fast enough for her lungs.
Boy mimicked her and did the same.
Gunshots rang out in the distance.
Now, it seemed, he was just firing anywhere in hope his bullets would find a target.
She put her hands on Boy’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes as she always did when she had to request another action that may save their lives.
“We’re going to get under this tree trunk and be as quiet as we possibly can, okay?”
He nodded.
“You understand, as quietly as we can?”
He nodded again.
“Good, come on.”
She took his hand and guided him to the floor. She slid with him across the ground, mud decorating their clothes.
When they were finally under the tree trunk, coated in darkness, completely hidden in the soft ground that sunk under their weight, she put her arms around Boy and held him close.
She felt Boy crying into her top, but crying silently.
She stroked his hair, kissed his forehead. Told him it would be okay even though she had no idea whether it would be.
Heavy footsteps eventually approached, accompanied by gunshots and wayward shouting.
As they grew louder, some of the words became clearer.
“You can’t hide, Cia!”
“You can’t run!”
“I’ll get him!”
“I’ll tear his lungs out and make you watch!”
“I will rip his little fucking body apart!”
She kept her arms wrapped around Boy’s head so he couldn’t pick up the words, holding tightly and stifling his tears.
Eventually, the gunshots, the shouts and the footsteps passed.
They stayed there. Didn’t move.
You never move straight away – rule number one to survival.
You wait longer than you need to.
Give it hours until you are sure that the predator has gone.
And that was exactly what they did.
THEN
Chapter Thirty-Two
It didn’t take long for Brooklyn to return to his typical, bolshy self. He walked with a limp for a few weeks after returning from the segregation unit, but that never dampened his spirits. The bruises faded, the cuts scabbed over, and the scars that remained stayed well hidden.
Not long after, they were circling the perimeter once more. Dalton was inwardly grateful for Brooklyn’s company again, with his temporary replacement having been deadly serious and dead-faced. Brooklyn was annoying as hell and barely shut up, but at least that meant they didn’t have to bullshit with small talk or incur any awkward silences.
“I tell you, mate,” Brooklyn was yapping on, “We should be on it. Those birds in there have little to choose from, it increases our odds.”
Dalton scoffed. He resented the term birds. He’d been raised by a strong woman and two older sisters who he knew would be throwing their arms in the air at such a term. But, whilst he didn’t partake in Brooklyn’s horny diatribe, he still found it somewhat amusing.
“I mean there are, what, a hundred single women, and even more single men, yeah – but most of them are dirty, boring-as-shit politicians. They got nothing on us.”
Dalton laughed.
“Boring-as-shit?” he repeated back with a chuckle.
“Yes, mate, I stand by my wise words – boring. As. Shit.”
“Well you get on that. I’m interested to see how it goes.”
“What about you?”
Dalton hit a twig and mentally scolded himself for not paying attention.
“What about me?”
Brooklyn placed an irritating arm around Dalton’s shoulders. “I worry about you! All alone on all those nights… Sure there’s nobody that takes your fancy?”
Dalton laughed at the suggestion.
“Hey, look, a guy’s got to eat,” Brooklyn continued. “And hey, we’re in there with all those American birds – they got to love our sexy British accents.”
“Our sexy British accents?”
“Shit yeah, bruv!”
“Bruv? You sound like Danny Dyer reading a crap thesaurus.”
Brooklyn fell into hysterics. He dropped to his knees, buckling under the laughter, unable to steady himself under the weight of the hilarity.
“All right, all right,” Dalton said. “Weren’t that funny.”
“Man, you don’t joke much but when you do it’s gold.”
Dalton grabbed Brooklyn’s arm and tried to help him up, but the laughter started again and he fell back to his knees.
Something caught Dalton’s attention. He tried to ignore the laughter and identify what it was – a faint voice, small and timid.
“Hello?”
“Brooklyn,” Dalton said, shaking him.
“What?” Brooklyn said, finally managing to stand.
They both looked to the source of the voice, where they found a boy, perhaps early teens, malnourished, standing a few trees across from them, alone.
“Hello?” Dalton said.
The boy looked to be on the verge of tears.
“What’s your name?”
The boy didn’t answer.
“My name is Dalton, this is Brooklyn.” Brooklyn raised a hand. “What do we call you?”
“David.”
“David. That’s a nice name. Are you alone, David?”
David shook his head.
“Who are you with?”
“I was with my mum and my dad, but…I don’t know where they’ve gone.”
Dalton looked to Brooklyn, feeling a stare. He saw Brooklyn’s eyes, and there was something about them he didn’t like. Something inappropriately fun. He tried to ignore it.
“Would you like to come with us? We can help you.”
David nodded.
Dalton waved him over and David approached.
“Where do you think my mum and dad are?” David asked.
“Be fucked if we know,” Brooklyn interjected before Dalton could say anything.
“Brooklyn, man,” Dalton said, shooting him a frown.
Brooklyn returned with a wink. That sneaky smile still there. Dalton realised Brooklyn was in one of those moods – he wished to toy with the boy.
Dalton really hoped he was wrong.
“Come on, we’ll help you–”
“They are probably dead, to be fair,” Brooklyn said again, sniggering.
“Brooklyn, mate, shut up,” Dalton shouted. “What is wrong with you?”
Brooklyn shrugged. Still grinning.
Dalton lifted his radio to his mouth, waving David over.
“Central, come in, this is Dalton,” he said.
The radio burst a second of static, then a voice spoke. “We hear you, go on.”
“We found a life out here, a boy. Says he lost his parents. Requesting permission to bring in.”
“What’s his condition?”
Dalton dropped the radio and looked at David. He didn’t seem to have any visible scars.
“You hurt, David?” he asked.
David shook his head.
“You sure?” Dalton asked.
David nodded.
Brooklyn raised his gun and pointed it at David’s head. David jumped back, startled.
“Strip,” Brooklyn demanded.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“We have to be sure,” Brooklyn told Dalton. “I ain’t letting in anything that may have a bite, that’s how shit spreads.” He turned back to David. “Strip.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Dalton urged the child. “You don’t have to–”
Brooklyn cocked his gun.
“Do it.”
David looked to Dalton, searching for the answers, looking for confirmation as to what he should do.
“No visible injuries on head, neck or hands,” Dalton said into the radio.
“What about the rest of the body?” the voice on the radio asked.
Dalton dropped his head. Sighed. If they were going to help this boy, they were going to have to know.
Dalton turned and walked away, leaving Brooklyn to do the part that he was unwilling to do.
NOW
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cathryn stared out the window, always longing. Doing what she was told. Staying put.
Staying put, but worrying.
She always missed Daddy. She understood why he had to go out, why he had to leave the confines of the small home they had made in their small flat, but she still resented it.
She didn’t used to. But after what happened to her mummy and…
She bowed her head. Covered her face. No more tears.
Daddy didn’t mind the tears. She’d seen his tears too, especially when he thought she wasn’t looking. Sometimes, at night, when she should be fast asleep, she’d hear them, a soft melody creeping into her room.
She didn’t mind.
She liked that her daddy cried. It meant she didn’t feel bad about crying too.
Peering out the window, she began to grow concerned. The sun was beginning to set, and she couldn’t see any sign of him.
Was this the day he was going to leave her too?
No. He’d never leave me.
Then she saw something.
Well, someone. Two someones. Leaving the clearing by the trees. Emerging from the forest and into the street. A girl. A boy. He was taller than her, but he looked younger. Maybe more like her age, possibly a little older.
People always made her scared.
Daddy had always said – run from the monsters, flee from the humans.
He said to be wary of people in the world we live in now. That not all people can be trusted. But they looked trustworthy.
A distant screech made her shiver.
Where was Daddy?
She hoped he would help these two. They looked nice. Not nasty like he said some people were.
A growl shook the building. A thud in the ground, growing bigger and bigger.
A Thoral was approaching. She knew it. She recognised the sound. She often sat at this window, watching them.
Daddy was still out there.
With the Thoral.
She saw the boy and the girl become alarmed.
They looked around themselves.
They didn’t know where to go.
Then a bush rustled.
Daddy…
Chapter Thirty-Four
Darkness had begun to descend. The cool air had settled and early evening had arrived.
That was never good.
It had been years since Cia had allowed herself to explore in the dark. God knows what might be lurking in the darkness, hunting you, watching.
As it was, she had no choice.
She needed to find them somewhere to stay for the night, and she didn’t have the time to assemble a shelter with twigs before pitch-black would be upon them.
She gripped Boy’s hand, unwillingly dragging him. She understood how tired he was, how much his legs were weighing him down, because she was that tired too. They had awoken in the middle of the previous night and hadn’t slept since. Tiredness was clawing at the inside of her skull and she was wary about how delayed her reactions may be, how slow she may be to respond to threats, or even notice them.
But they had no other choice but to persevere.
Eventually, they cleared the wooded area and entered a small town. She had been surprised to find it, but in all honesty, they had been walking for miles and miles and it made sense that they would leave the shelter of the trees at some point.
The advantage to this was that they could find an abandoned house to squat in.
The disadvantage was now that they no longer had the trees to hide them. The trees had kept them unseen from flying predators, kept them hidden from faraway prying eyes. Now they were exposed – but, hopefully, their exposure would be brief.
Just as she began looking around, inspecting the looted shops, boarded up houses, smashed windows, silent sounds and eerie images of homes once lived in, Boy became a dead weight. The arm she had hold of pulled away and he stood, his feet roots in the cement.
“Come on,” she urged him.
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Just a little bit further, Boy, I promise.”
“You already said that!”
It was true, she had told him a that quite a few miles ago.
She looked around. The open air. The empty sky above.
She grew more cautious – something felt wrong.
Anything could pounce on them at any moment.
“See these houses around us? We are going to find one to stay in, okay? We just need to look a little further.”
“Fine. I’ll wait here.”
“No, Boy, you need to come with me.”
“No! You find a house, then I’ll come.”
She sighed. She felt his frustration and could hardly hold it against him. She was battling fatigue just as much as he was, and she wanted to throw her arms in the air and declare this a pointless voyage.
But she couldn’t afford the luxury of annoyance.
They had to find somewhere to shelter for the night. They had to survive.
“Look, Boy, I know how awful this is, but I’m worried that–”
She stopped talking.
Interrupted by a small but menacing sound.
Something distant, but close.
She listened – stood still, taking in every sound, from the rustle of leaves to the wind through broken windows to the–
A growl. Echoing. The source of which Cia could not find but could not mistake.
She looked around. Never mind somewhere to stay for the night – they now needed somewhere to hide.
“Did you hear that?” Cia asked.
Boy nodded.
“That was a Thoral. We need to move.”
As soon as the word Thoral was spoken, he shut down. He covered his ears, closed his eyes, and refused to let there be a Thoral.
Cia wanted to burst into tears but didn’t.
She’d had enough.
One thing after another.
And it was always up to her. Her job to ensure their survival, to fight the monsters, fight Dalton, fight everything. It was always up to her to break Boy out of his distress and force him to move and save him and how are we not dead yet?
The growl again. Louder. Closer.
“Please, Boy.”
She really didn’t want to go through the ritual again. Go through all the steps to calm him down when, at any moment, a large beast could jump out and rip both of them in two.
She grabbed his arms and ripped them away. Shook his head until his eyes opened.
Everyone has a tether, and everyone has a point when they are at the end of it – then there was a place far beyond the end of that tether, and that was where you’d find Cia.
“This does not help
!” she snapped, and instantly hated herself for it.
Everything was piling up.
Every held back tear, feeling of quelled anxiety, worried nights with little sleep – it had all turned into a big pile of anxiety, and that big pile had been hovering above her head for a while and now, finally, it had broken and fallen all over her.
“Right, now let’s–” she said, desperately forcing herself to keep her cool.
But she was interrupted by two things:
The ground shaking beneath them and wobbling the surface, accompanied by the sight of a Thoral landing its feet upon the crooked road.
And a bush nearby that began to move, then began to talk.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Colin was just on his way back when he saw them.
He didn’t like leaving his daughter for long. Even before the collapse of society, leaving a seven-year-old home alone was not good – now it could be disastrous. But, safe in the knowledge that she was safe in the flat, he’d decided to see if he could find any more food. Now, dark was beginning to settle, and his forty-three-year-old legs weren’t what they once were.
But there was something about these people…
Maybe it was his nurturing, fatherly instincts that were kicking in. After all, they looked so young. She was petite, maybe late teens – and he was probably only a few years older than his dear Cathryn.
In fact, he was probably the same age David was when he…
He huffed.
Why did every damn thought need to go back to what he’d lost?
He prayed that he’d never forget the fallen, but he still had the greatest gift his late wife had given him – his daughter. She needed his focus now.
He stayed in the bush. His camouflage, his coat of leaves, had always kept him hidden when something sinister came crawling or flying or running or slithering past. As long as he stayed hidden, they rarely noticed him.
After all, his flat was in the building behind him. He had little ground he needed to cover, and keys to keep these people out if need be.
But they didn’t seem like bad people. If anything, they looked like they were running out of willpower. They were encased in mud, so much so he could barely see what the colour of their clothes was. His instinct was that they were good people.