Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1)

by Harry Manners

  “Morning, warden,” he said. “How are the inmates today?”

  “Stale. Rotten. But still singing their sweet songs.” She threw her arms around him and giggled. “Welcome home.”

  “Careful now,” he said. “Robert catches us and I’ll have a stump instead of a head before you can blink.”

  She drew back and glanced out the door, to where Robert’s silhouette clambered the pigeon-infested pylon on Main Street, her eyes swimming with puppy love. “He’s not the jealous type. At least, I don’t think so. I suppose time will tell.”

  Norman forced himself to turn his attention to the task at hand, but did so grudgingly. He’d have liked to spend the day here. After the struggle, hunger, and horrors that lay beyond the city, the warehouse never failed to act as an all-curing tonic. In his youth, when Alexander had been working so tirelessly to keep society alive—when even his name had been but the stuff of legend to a handful of scattered tribes—Norman had spent his days in similar secret troves, his nose buried in books written by long-dead Old World writers.

  In addition, Sarah was among the few who were unlikely to ever look upon him with any degree of hero worship. Her gaze never failed to penetrate the aura of godliness erected by the city folk, to see him for the clueless idiot he truly was.

  She would never expect anything of him.

  However, the thought of the maelstrom that was Allison Rutherford held his attention, and he peered around without another word, scouring the scale-model city of yellowed paperbacks and leather-bound tomes.

  Sarah was wittering on, “Library running thin? We just got a new batch of first editions from a bank vault in Dover.”

  He shook his head. “I’m well stocked for the moment. I heard Allie was here. You mind if I borrow her?”

  Sarah blinked, her lashes magnified to huge proportions by the slab-like lenses of her spectacles. “Not at all.”

  While Norman had spoken, as though summoned, Allison had poked her head from behind the stack of hardbacks from which Sarah had appeared. Her face was downcast and sheepish.

  He beckoned her imperiously before she could disappear. “Come on,” he said. “We have things to do.”

  She hesitated momentarily, reluctant to leave her sheltered hovel, but then her shoulders slumped and she stepped forwards.

  “I’ll be back to see those first editions,” he called as he made for the door.

  “Do keep a look out for more Tolstoy!” Sarah cried from the depths of the paper maze. “Our stocks are dangerously low.” She paused. “But no more King! We already have enough to build a whole new ridge on the east side!”

  Norman couldn’t help smiling. “What’s wrong with King?”

  She made a noise of disquiet. “I don’t play favourites when it comes to the world’s heritage.”

  Norman’s smile widened. “Prude,” he said. “All work and no play…”

  Sarah scoffed from the foothills of the pile he called Mount Fitzgerald and was gone, leaving behind a single resounding call, “Good luck out there, Gunslinger.”

  Norman led Allie back towards Main Street.

  “I wasn’t hiding,” she said quickly.

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “Yes, but—oh.”

  He turned to her. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  “Nobody.”

  Norman didn’t speak again until they reached the stables, glad that Lucian had made his suggestion.

  *

  Norman darted between rows of plants, casting shrivelled fruits into a threadbare sack, his boots squelching in waterlogged mud. Nearby, Lucian and Allison filled their own bags. He worked at a feverish pace, pausing often to listen and look over his shoulders, hunched low to the ground.

  The field in which they stood had long ago belonged to people who had enjoyed extra gardening and a steady supply of surplus greens. Quaint little plots, sectioned off in neat squares. The occasional dilapidated shed still protruded from the ground, sometimes adorned with a wisp of shredded tarpaulin.

  When a sharp crack rang out, he instinctively crouched lower to the ground, turning on his heels to look for its source. He could see Allie and Lucian’s knees through the fronds, but little else.

  Sweat immediately began to form in large rivulets upon his skin, smearing the dirt on his arms and hands, falling past his brow and stinging his eyes. His fingers dug deep channels into the stinking mud as he began to crawl forwards.

  Within four feet, the leaves parted before him to reveal a dark shape, amorphous and bristling. Norman flinched, pushing off from the ground in a moment of blind panic. He collapsed back into a tangle of decomposing creepers, spluttering and kicking for purchase.

  Before he could cry out, a snort filled the air, one that made him freeze in place. He ceased flailing immediately and rolled forth onto his haunches.

  Staggering to his feet, he stared down at the pink back of the fattest pig he’d ever seen. Its underbelly was covered with a thick paste of rotten plant matter and its nose twitched without pause in the morning sun, hanging from which were tendrils of rotten aubergine.

  After considering him for a moment, it stepped forwards and nudged his legs with its snout. Norman put out his hand and patted its head awkwardly, glancing to the adjacent row of strawberry bushes as Lucian and Allie emerged from hiding.

  Lucian crashed through the undergrowth, studying the pig. “We shouldn’t have come out today,” he said.

  “It’s just a pig.”

  “Look how close it got before we realised. People would kill us without a break in their step to get at this food.”

  “How is that different from any other day?”

  Lucian shook his head. “That’s not the point.” He paused for a while, looking towards where the open gate swung in the wind. It backed immediately onto a main road. “We should leave,” he muttered.

  Allison turned to Norman out of what was clearly a knee-jerk reaction. She was awaiting not Lucian’s word, but his.

  A sliver of annoyance festered in his gut. In the past, those looks had come but once in a blue moon. Now, it seemed they waited for him around every corner.

  With a grunt that wasn’t quite devoid of chagrin, he nodded. A squall of shame lapped at his conscience, but Allie seemed satisfied, and to be rid of her demanding gaze was reward enough.

  They made to leave, but before they could do so, a thought occurred to Norman. By the manner in which they turned back to face the pig in step with him, he guessed the very same had occurred to them.

  The hog stared back at them with benign friendliness, apparently mistaking their attention for reciprocity.

  But, as their stares endured, and Norman was sure that his gaze had become a leer of craving—or madness—something too changed on the pig’s face. If it could have been smiling then, under their combined gaze, that smile would have faltered.

  *

  The sun beat down on the field without mercy as it reached its highest point in the sky. Blinding rays struck Norman’s face as he struggled to focus on the middle distance, his eyes scrunched down to slits.

  The tension was palpable. Gathered atop a slight rise at the periphery of an expansive field, all was still. Not man, woman or horse moved an inch, nor made a sound.

  Norman adjusted his stance, bouncing atop bent knees as he concentrated on his target. A single bead of sweat made a break for his chin, escaping from its kindred upon his half-fried forehead.

  And then, with practiced precision, he swung the club in his hands. “Fore!” he bellowed. His voice was rendered thunderous by the many echoes that returned from the valley floor.

  The white ball soared skywards from the tee at his feet, becoming a mere speck and disappearing into the sun’s glare. After several long seconds there was a distant thud as it struck earth somewhere out of sight.

  “Slouching,” Lucian grunted. “Try straightening your back more.”

&n
bsp; “Remind me why we’re doing this,” Norman said, turning to him and handing over the club.

  “We have to wait. I’m not making a beeline for home if somebody’s watching.”

  “There’s nobody out here.”

  “We don’t know that. Now stop your whining and move. It’s my turn.”

  Norman stepped over towards his mount, from which hung what they’d managed to gather, along with the sack that contained the butchered swine, and felt the knot in his stomach loosen slightly.

  They had risked lingering in the field for enough time to strip it bare. Most of the fruit would need culinary magic to make it edible—let alone palatable—but they had done well, and there was a chance the meat would add enough to the pot for the city folk to enjoy a decent dinner. The stag from the coast had been a prize in itself, but the pig had grown fat enough on the allotments’ fetid slop to at least double their meat stocks.

  At Lucian’s insistence, they had taken a winding route home, and halted several miles from the city. They now stood in a valley that marked the northern edge of their territory, where they had stood watch for over an hour, waiting for any weary refugees who might have followed them.

  Norman wasn’t quite sure of when the golf had begun—only that at some point they had found the rusted club and basket of balls in the high grass, where some poor sod had left them forty years ago as he’d vanished from under his white flat cap—but in the midday heat it didn’t seem to matter. He was glad for the distraction.

  He sat on the grass beside Allison and the two of them watched Lucian take his swing, hunchbacked to the extreme, contrary to his own advice.

  She sniffed. “Did you have to make me come out here all day?”

  Norman looked at her for a second, found that there was nothing to say, and then turned back to Lucian.

  He saw her eye twitch in his peripheral vision. “I don’t believe in keeping things a secret. If people are starving, then everybody deserves to know.”

  “The whole world’s starving.”

  “Not like them! My god, Norman, you can’t be serious. We’re living like spoilt royalty compared to them.”

  “We don’t know anything,” he said patiently. “We haven’t even got reports from the other scavenging parties yet. We should just wait until we have all the facts before we go telling people about our…unfounded conclusions.”

  Allison bristled, but then seemed to restrain herself. “Fine. It’s your decision. I just wish you’d tell us what we’re going to do sooner rather than later.”

  Norman straightened, then looked down at his hands. It was some time before he could bring himself to say, “You shouldn’t look to me for answers, Allie. I’m not a leader.”

  Allison looked taken aback. “But you will be,” she said, frowning, as though stating that the sky was blue.

  “I didn’t ask to be.”

  Lucian cleared his throat and fixed Norman with a pointed stare.

  Norman made to speak, but then registered Allison’s confused expression and closed his mouth. “Don’t listen to me,” he sighed. “I’m just tired.”

  She looked relieved, and sank back. They lapsed into silence for a while and took turns swinging the club, sending ball after ball sailing down into the valley. After half an hour, Allison spoke up once more. “How did it happen?” she said.

  Norman closed his eyes, dreading whatever was coming, lying in the depths of the wild grass. “How did what happen?” he mumbled.

  “We’ve all heard the stories. People talk and whisper about you, but nobody’s ever heard it from the horse’s mouth.” Her eyes scanned him carefully, and Norman began to wonder whether her name being drawn for scavenging duty in Margate had been entirely down to chance after all. “You said you didn’t ask to lead us. So somebody picked you, didn’t they? You were chosen.”

  She was staring at him with rapt fascination, as though she had been granted a private audience with a figure from a fairy tale. “It was Alexander, wasn’t it? He chose you.” She inched closer. “When?”

  For a long time, he didn’t answer, trying to catch Lucian’s gaze. But Lucian kept his back turned to him, visibly rigid, wilfully deaf. Eventually, Norman bowed his head and nodded. “When I was a boy,” he said. “Just after I lost my parents. At least, that’s the first I remember of it.” He picked at a stray blade of grass. “They tell me that my parents put me up for it when I was born, but…the accident that killed them… I got hurt too. I don’t remember anything before it all that well.”

  Allie’s voice was hushed, “What do you remember?”

  He squinted skywards, recalling the flashes that sometimes invaded his dreams. He didn’t mean to say a word—had a mind to tell her to mind her own goddamn business—but then his lips moved of their own accord. “A storm.” His voice had grown cold, distant. Words formed without thought, as though somebody else were speaking through him. “I think it was just after the accident. I’m lying on my back…the rain is cold. My head hurts.” Norman frowned as a twinge of genuine pain flashed just above his right ear—behind the twisted scar that lay just above his hairline—before that strange, detached voice continued, “Alex is standing over me. He’s saying that it’ll be all right, that he’ll take care of me. And then he says something else. He has a secret. He says it’s my destiny…my destiny to save it.”

  Allie’s voice, a mere whisper, “Save what?”

  “The world.”

  A brief silence rang in his ears before she answered.

  “Just like that?” Allie said. “Right there and then?”

  Norman nodded.

  She hesitated before uttering, “Do you think you’ll ever remember…what happened before?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe not. It’s been almost years…” He felt an ugly smile blossom on his lips and glanced up at her. “I’m not holding out for it.”

  Lucian was quiet, readying his latest swing, but Norman knew that he’d followed their every word.

  Allison was still staring. “How do you tell somebody something like that?” she said. “That they’re going to have to take care of everybody?”

  Norman sat up and brushed his hair from his eyes. He looked away, towards a distant rise, where the wind turbines that powered New Canterbury revolved in the listless midday wind. Watching them made the words come easier, but he still spoke haltingly. “That’s not what bothers me. I get that we need somebody to keep carrying the torch. I really do. It’s that he used that word…told me it was my destiny.”

  Allie’s eyes met his. “Why does that bother you?”

  He laughed, but his wan smile slid from his face as he said, “Because there’s no such thing as destiny.”

  VI

  Don woke late in the afternoon. He rubbed his cheek, numb from being pressed against the lip of the prow, and groaned as the boat was buffeted by an errant wave, holding still until a spell of nausea had passed.

  The day had been warm and muggy. Land was by now a long way off. A distant shadow that loomed where water met sky was all that remained of the heath-capped cliffs. He tried to judge how far away it was. It couldn’t have been very far compared to what still lay ahead, but it certainly looked as though they had crossed an impossible distance.

  The old man was snoring under the awning in the stern. With each honking breath he drew, the hull resonated. Only his feet protruded from the awning’s shadow, but by their inclination it was clear that he was flat on his back.

  Don sat up, groggy, and blinked sleep dust from his eyes. His skin felt leathery and his mouth was dry. He took one of their canteens and half-emptied it, but his thirst was unquenched.

  He would need more soon if he was to retain his senses, but for now he returned the canteen to the awning’s shade. Even as he did so, he felt the fresh moisture upon his chapped lips begin to drain away.

  All of their planning, all of the time they had spent preparing for the trip, and they hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the fact tha
t they’d need so much water. They’d used over half of their reserves already.

  He cleared his throat, fighting cottonmouth and year-old hunger, and brought out the grubby folds of their map, which fluttered in the breeze while he checked their course against the old man’s compass.

  A shuffling eventually disturbed him. Billy’s tiny profile had been invisible until she’d lifted her head, crouched beside the awning. Don blinked in shock, seeing her afresh. Her eyes looked enormous amidst her hollowed cheeks. She scarcely resembled the plump, freckle-faced munchkin he’d been raising a year ago.

  His little girl was starving.

  He beckoned her, and she crawled over to sit in his lap. Don continued to check the map with his arms looped over her shoulders. She peered at it for a while, bemused, and then said, “Are we there yet?”

  “Not yet. Soon.”

  “I don’t like the sea anymore. We’ve been away for too long. We should go back.”

  Don put the map down. “We’ve only been gone a few hours.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “We’re all hungry.”

  She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him, a coy smile touching her lips. “Where are we going?” she said.

  “Billy…”

  “Pleeaaase.”

  Don grumbled and then retold the story of their journey to the new land, embellishing it as usual with improvised speculative details. Billy listened in a trance and smiled at the fantastical legend of the New Land.

  Afterwards, the two of them sat in silence and listened to the old man sleeping under the awning. They watched the sun begin to dip, rolling to the waves’ rhythm.

  “You were asleep for a long time,” she said.

  “Was I?” Looking at the sun, he made a rough estimation of where it had been before he’d dozed. “It can’t have been that long.”

  “It was forever.”

  He smiled. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “It’s daytime. You always tell me not to sleep in the daytime.”