Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1)

by Harry Manners

  There were around thirty horses nearby, snuffling somewhere in the dark. Each had been kept fed and watered at great expense, with food taken from far-flung lands. How many human lives had they cut short to keep their stables full?

  Dozens. Maybe more.

  Alex shook his head as he shut the stall’s gate on Allie’s horse. “I don’t know what to think,” he murmured. “I can’t afford to.”

  Norman stroked his own steed’s mane as he attached a bag of grain to its muzzle. He followed Alex back into the streets, looking over the dormant city and the ruins beyond. “This has never happened before,” he said. “We’ve never been so close to the brink, even before we settled here.”

  Alex locked him with a steely gaze. “No.”

  “We will kill more people if we keep going out.”

  “We’ll die if we don't.”

  Norman paused. The echoes of his footsteps took a long time to dissipate, returning time and time again from the winding maze of crumbling bricks and mortar.

  Alex shook his head, having grown stern in an instant. “It’s not a question of right and wrong. We go out and we take what we can, or we starve instead of them. It’s that simple.”

  Norman said nothing. His mind’s eye was busy once again, wriggling the skeletal fingers of the fallen before his eyes.

  Alex watched him carefully until the silence between them had grown taut. “There’s nothing that you can do until morning.” He made to turn away, hesitated, and instead laid a hand on Norman’s shoulder. He smiled, and although the expression was rendered monochromatic and twisted by the deepening darkness, Norman felt better. “Welcome home,” he said.

  Norman nodded, then frowned. “People are starting to look to me,” he said. “All of them. It’s like they expect me to grow a white beard and lead them into the desert.”

  Alex laughed for far longer than Norman thought appropriate; it was as though he had been privy to a hidden joke. After some time, wiping his eyes, he said, “Norman, they look to you because they can. You have something that they don’t. You have a des—”

  “Destiny,” Norman muttered. “I know.”

  Alex’s hand loosened somewhat on his shoulder, but his gaze was steady. “That’s right,” he said. “Destiny.”

  “You’ve told me that every day since I can remember.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure that they were alone. “But I don’t know if I’m the right person. I can’t do this, Alex. I’m not ready, I’m not… I can’t save anyone.”

  Alex’s expression didn’t change. Instead, he merely clapped a hand against Norman’s cheek. “Nobody ever wants to lead,” he said. “And anybody who does is the last person for the job. But that’s what people need: somebody to look to. In fact, it’s all they ever need. And”—he looked down at himself and laughed once more—“I’m not always going to be here. They need a fresh face, to know that somebody’s ready to step in and take the reins when… when the time comes. They need you to be that person, Norman. I need you to be that person.”

  Norman’s words caught in his throat, the same ones that had lodged there every time he’d tried to argue his case. Day after day, year after year, they had festered in his bowels.

  I’m not you.

  Instead, he forced the falsest of smiles onto his face—one he hoped was hidden by shadow—and nodded.

  Alex patted his shoulder once more and turned away towards the hall, becoming a mere silhouette against the flare of the streetlights. “Get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Norman stood alone for some time outside the stables. He peered in through the hall’s windows and watched Allison talk with haunted eyes. Although it was against orders, he was sure that she was recounting their tale, and his stomach sank. He no longer felt hungry at all. He sighed and headed home, his footsteps echoing through empty streets.

  *

  Alexander waited in the gloom while the supplies were packed away. He paced back and forth until the job was done and the others stumbled away into the night.

  By then, Lucian was taking a last look around at the pavement for forgotten scraps. He then affixed the storeroom door with its enormous padlock and stowed the key in his pocket with great care. It wasn’t until he was on the verge of turning for home that Alexander stepped from the shadows.

  “Thought you'd gone home,” Lucian said, apparently unsurprised to see him materialise from the darkness.

  Alexander said nothing—Lucian had always had a sixth sense about being watched—and approached until they were no more than a few inches apart; close enough for Alex to smell the several days’ worth of perspiration that had accrued on Lucian's body. “Welcome, brother,” he said.

  They embraced, but for a moment only. Lucian stepped back and frowned at the proximity. “How are things?” he said slowly.

  “They’re fine,” Alex said.

  “Did something happen while we were away?”

  “No. It’s been quiet here.”

  Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I can’t give my brother a hug when he comes home?”

  “You haven’t given me so much as a handshake since I got old enough to piss without sitting down. And don’t call me ‘brother’.”

  Alex was quiet for a moment. Then he merely nodded, ignoring the unsettled lump in his throat, and held out his hand. “Here.”

  Lucian received the perfectly kept pigeon feather, a silver slick upon his palm in the artificial light.

  The two of them looked at it, frozen in place for a long time, uttering not a sound. So quiet had it become that the trickle of the Stour seemed deafening. Alex could almost see the cogs turning in Lucian’s mind as the atmosphere around him took the long road from bemused surprise to confusion, through disbelief and finally to a muted, distant fear.

  When Lucian spoke, his voice was cracked. “What's this?”

  Alex swallowed hard. “I found that on my doorstep this morning,” he said.

  Lucian’s stance remained unchanged by the news, and yet to Alex’s eyes his entire manner had shifted. His eyes were suddenly trailing the edge of their sockets, his lips parted and his breathing quickened. Alex knew to exactly what extent Lucian’s inner calm had been shattered, because the very same thing had happened to him that morning.

  “You’re sure that it isn’t a coincidence?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Lucian ran a hand through his hair and grumbled to himself. He turned in a wide circle and threw myriad glances out into the night. “This can’t happen,” he whispered. “It can’t.”

  Alex said nothing and watched him whirl on the spot, distantly pleased to see him react so well, and slightly ashamed that he himself hadn’t taken the news with quite as much grace.

  After only a minute, Lucian was standing still again and was looking down at the feather. “It’s not possible,” he said. “It’s ridiculous… It’s not poss—” He muttered to himself for a while longer. His whispering dissipated only after several emphatic grunts, and his voice began to come back to him. Soon after, his usual irritability returned.

  Still, Alexander said nothing, and watched while Lucian paced and ranted, waiting for the storm to quell itself.

  Eventually, Lucian stood still again, and they were staring into each other’s eyes.

  “What do we do?” Lucian said.

  Alex exhaled through his teeth and looked away, along the road, to where Norman had been not long before. “I don’t know,” he said.

  IV

  Donald Peyton kicked at the horse’s ribs, urging it on. As they accelerated, the icy rain bit at his skin without mercy, driving numb fingers closer to coming out in chilblains. Sheer panic kept him moving, but for the last mile he’d been on the brink of falling into a senseless stupor.

  When lightning flashed, the valley below was cast alight. Gnarled branches devoid of leaves loomed and clawed at the air above his head. The remains of a winding road cut across the la
nd, stretching away into the unknown.

  Somewhere behind the roar of the storm, a distant rumble stirred on the brink of audibility. To Don’s ears, however, it was a deafening racket, dangerously close. Whenever it punctured the din of the tempest, he mercilessly beat at the horse’s sides. The road ahead straightened, allowing him to chance glancing over his shoulder.

  All he saw was the tarmac, shimmering behind a curtain of rain.

  He pushed on, navigating the winding road, allowing his instincts to guide him. The horse was reluctant and exhausted, but yielded under his beatings.

  After ten minutes he could see through the trees ahead, to where the Celtic Sea surged back and forth beneath wicked, black clouds. The beginnings of dawn were afoot, casting the water in an ugly grey hue. The waves slammed against the crumbled sea wall, spraying the remains of County Cork’s most south-western barony—the name of which had slipped from the world’s memory—with chunks of rusted detritus.

  Don raced parallel to the sea for what seemed like an age, but couldn’t have been more than a further five minutes. The sea wall was soon left behind and the land buckled into the shape of what had been the harbour. Innumerable yachts and motorboats had once been moored, but now in the churning water only the tattered remnants of as many masts bobbed in their place, bearing fabric torn and limp.

  Don peered into the maritime mausoleum and picked out his destination: a tiny rowboat bobbing along the jetty like a twig in a puddle—a violent, turbulent puddle. The rumble grew louder and niggled at the back of his head until he could no longer resist the unbearable urge to glance over his shoulder once more. Again, all he saw was rain-soaked tarmac.

  But in his mind’s eye he saw the assortment of orange lights that had hung between the trees like fireflies, before the storm had descended and limited his view. They had remained in pursuit for mile after mile, defying his efforts to escape them. He was sure that as soon as he stopped, they would regain the ground he’d won, but for now they were only ghosts of the mind and a rumble in the night.

  He left the trees behind and descended into the ruins of Schull, clad in shadow under the moonlight. The horse’s hooves clattered on uneven cobbled streets and Don was forced to grip the reins tighter to maintain control. He passed by abandoned houses and shops, sending fleeting glances into darkened alleyways.

  Then the cobbles gave way to the water’s edge, and he was riding out along the jetty, towards the rowboat. A single figure popped up from within and disrupted its black silhouette. The figure didn’t move an inch until he was directly beside it. He disengaged himself from the steaming mount and worked his arms until the faintest sliver of feeling returned to his frozen, claw-like hands. Grunting, he rubbed them against his chest until they prickled with the heat of fresh blood.

  The figure rose from the rowboat and stepped onto the jetty. In the midst of the harbour, the footsteps of the old man were audible in every crevice, cellar and attic, even over the crash of the storm. But, just as was so everywhere else, there was nobody left to hear them. He crept up to the shuddering steed and took the reins, pulling its head close and whispering calming words into its ear.

  Don fought the urge to let his knees buckle and gripped the stirrups for a time, watching the old man soothe the exhausted mount. Schull’s withered ruin sat quietly beneath the looming hulk of Mount Gabriel, but he kept it within his peripheral vision, wary of its many shadows.

  “You were gone a long time,” the old man said.

  Don tried to answer, but his lips had become an exotic form of rubber. He shuddered and stamped along the concrete until his feet were burning in his boots and he felt enough strength to answer. “I had trouble.”

  The old man didn't break the horse’s dull stare. “What kind of trouble?”

  “They came for our things. The house was raided by the time I got back.”

  “What was left, we didn’t need.”

  “I know. I just told them what I wanted. But one of them already had the locket.”

  “And?”

  “He wouldn’t hear me.”

  “Did you tell them who you were?”

  “They weren’t interested. They knew we weren’t coming back. They must’ve been watching us pack up for days.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone alone. People never respect a man on his own.”

  “I had to. There wasn’t time.”

  “You should have said something. I had to wake up to find you gone. I had to look after Billy. What would I have done if you hadn’t come back?”

  Don fumed. “I had to get it,” he said. He touched the locket, now hanging from his neck, and his gaze fell to the ground. “It’s all I have left of Miranda’s.”

  The old man abandoned his testiness, and was quiet until Don raised his head once more. “I know,” he said. “You were saying?”

  “They were taking it all,” Don began. He made to say more, but hesitated.

  The old man caught his eye. “What happened?”

  “They thought I was there to do the same, so they got rough. I tried to make them see sense, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “And?”

  Don could meet his gaze no longer, and instead addressed the jetty as he said, “Dad, I killed one of them.”

  The old man’s mouth drew into a sharp line, but he continued to caress the horse’s mane. After a while he gave the tiniest of nods.

  Don knew he would get no more. “I grabbed for the locket, but he wouldn’t let go.” He paced, grunting. “Argh…we fell, and it was dark. I picked up the first thing I could lay my hands on and beat him over the head with it, and…it was your old claw hammer. I killed him,” he murmured, uttering the last words in a harsh voice unlike his own.

  “You did what you had to do.”

  “I killed a man.”

  The old man seized his arm. Don stared down into his sunken face and was subjected to the ravages of his frank, searching eyes. “Yes, you killed a man,” he said. “Smashed his head in, no doubt. And then what?”

  Don swallowed. “And then I ran. I took the locket and ran.”

  The old man nodded impatiently. “Yes, you ran. And then?”

  “They followed me across our fields and through the forest. But I think I lost them.”

  “You think.” Two words, only two, but more than enough to make Don’s heart skip a beat.

  The old man searched his face. Then he said, “Get in the boat. We can’t be seen in the harbour.”

  Don moved closer to him. “I lost them, I swear.”

  “Get in the boat.”

  Don glanced back at the village a final time—and then he saw them. The distant orange glow turned his chest to ice and sent his knees shaking. He made to alert the old man, but he’d already noticed, and was in the process of loosening the boat’s tether, his ancient hands a blur.

  “They followed me. I shouldn’t have come back!”

  “Be quiet now,” the old man hissed.

  The orange lights were in the lower parts of the port, bringing the dead buildings to life, shining ghostly light through long-weathered glass. The rain was thinning as dawn approached. The storm was moving up the coast, leaving the harbour in relative silence. The rumble that had plagued Don in the forest had once again become audible, and was growing louder by the second.

  Don sat in the boat and laid the oars over his lap, flexing his arms for a last time. He rubbed them until his tingling skin screamed in protest before taking hold of the oars again, preparing to push off from the jetty.

  And then he paused, eyes bulging from their sockets. The dull pain that had persisted in his chest for the last few weeks—which he’d forgotten all about during the night’s chaos—suddenly pulsed, sending daggers shooting along his throat.

  No, he thought. Not now. Please not now!

  But despite his efforts to stifle the ugly sensation, a guttural groan forced its way up from his lungs. He doubled over as a deafening cough flew from his mouth. The racket echoe
d across the harbour, followed by a rapid succession of gags and cries. He tried to stop the flow of spittle as it fell from his lips, tinged with darker shades of blood, but his lungs were doing their best to rid themselves of any residual air.

  “Be silent!” the old man said.

  Don tried to answer, but his body had no intention of allowing it. He dropped the oars, his vision blurred by tears as unbearable pain wracked his body.

  A shrill cry issued from the awning in the stern, young, feminine and frightened. “Daddy!” The flap jostled as its occupant shifted within.

  Don whirled, gagging, and flapped his hand at the old man.

  Billy couldn’t see him like this. She couldn’t see how close they were to oblivion.

  The old man rushed to the awning’s opening. “No, no, Billy! Stay there. Stay hidden. No matter what, you stay under there.”

  “Grandpa, I—”

  “You stay there!”

  A whimper filled the air, but the jostling ceased.

  The coughing subsided after half a minute. By then Don was on the floor beside the abandoned oars, taking great gasps of the fetid blanket of air surrounding the rowboat’s hull. The old man said nothing more. After a while Don had caught his breath and sat up. Rubbing his chest, he waited for his breathing to settle, and blinked tears from his eyes.

  The coughing fits had been getting worse, but that had been the worst yet. He suppressed a distant pang of fear and forced himself to focus.

  He struggled over to the stern and steadied the tarpaulin draped over it, checking the lashings and tightening the knots until he was certain it wouldn’t collapse in the high winds blowing in off the North Atlantic.

  “Daddy,” Billy whispered from within. Through a crack in the tarp, a pair of owlish eyes peered out at him, ocean-blue, watery, and afraid. “Daddy, what’s happening?”

  “Quiet,” he hissed. “We’re leaving. Stay hidden, now. Stay safe.”