Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1)

by Harry Manners

  “What? No, no, I was just tired. You know I get tired a lot at the moment.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “You were snoring.”

  “I was?” Don looked down at his spread-eagled impression in the sand, firmly set and comically accurate, a strict mould of the contours of his face. “How long?”

  Billy looked stricken, and glanced at the pocket watch dangling from his belt. “I don’t know time, Daddy,” she said.

  “You can tell time.” Despite his exhaustion, he kept his voice firm and pointed to the sky.

  Billy glanced at the sun and hunched her shoulders, shying away from it. “I can’t,” she said.

  “Of course you can.”

  “I don’t like to. You can do it better with your watch. The sun isn’t as good, you said.”

  Don sighed and used their piled supplies to haul himself to his feet. He took a deep breath as a pang of land sickness nauseated him. “Roughly,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “How long, roughly?”

  Billy scrunched up her face. After a few hesitant stutters and false starts, she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Don leaned against the boxes and rested his head in his hands. “Billy, I know that you can tell time. You’ve been able to do it since you could talk.”

  She looked unsettled. “I don’t like to,” she said. “I like your watch. I like you to tell time.”

  Don caught her glancing at the pocket watch; an intrigued, but distantly frightened look, as though she suspected that it contained untold powers, which only adults had the wisdom to wield.

  Don nodded. “Alright,” he said.

  She looked pleased to be rid of the conversation, and resumed scanning the coast.

  Don attempted to gauge how long had passed himself. There was no question that the shadows had shifted, but the sun was still high in the sky. He decided that it couldn’t have been longer than an hour.

  He approached the tideline and craned his neck, trying to peer around a distant peninsula blocking their view to the south. Besides the boat and themselves, there was nothing distinctive about the landscape at all. They alone seemed to break the landscape’s perfect symmetry, caught between the four elements of sky, sea, sand and forest.

  “Where are we?” he said.

  “New land,” Billy said. “It is New Land, isn’t it, Daddy?”

  ”I don’t know. Wherever it is, it definitely isn’t home.”

  She made a noise of bemusement. “It has a name. Enger Land?”

  “England.”

  “That’s a funny name. I think Enger Land is better.”

  Don straightened when a shadow appeared from the forest and made its way towards them. His momentary shock gave way to recognition as the old man’s unmistakable figure emerged from the shade of the treetops, stumbling and cursing his way across the sand. After what seemed like an age, he reached them. Dropping an armful of dried wood in front of them, he dusted his hands and gestured to it with a cry of satisfaction.

  “What’s this?” Don said, inspecting a twisted lump of dried root.

  “Fuel, dear boy.”

  “Good.”

  “We’ll stay here for the night. There’s no sense in wandering now. We’ll only get lost.”

  Don looked around at the barren dunes. “We’ll be seen,” he said. “The beach is too open. We should move inland.”

  The old man gestured to the trees. “There’s nobody there.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Past the trees, there are more trees. That forest is thick…it looks like it goes on for miles. There isn’t a break in sight.”

  “So?”

  “So? No water, no room, no animals. There’s no reason for anybody to be anywhere near here. So we’ll stay the night.”

  Don thought of arguing—wanted to argue—but the old man had already set about constructing a plateau in the sand upon which to build their fire. He avoided Billy’s eye and started helping the old man without another word.

  Once a nest of flames was crackling in the sand, the three of them stretched out beside it in silence, listening to the surf as the sun began its long descent. After a while, the old man brought out a small pile of bruised fruit. They cut it into slices, perhaps too thin in an effort to make it last, but it was still far from a satisfying meal.

  The old man threw a spare stick into the flames and let loose a high-pitched titter. “We were aiming for Bristol, but I climbed a hill on the other side of the trees… I don’t see anything.

  “I think we must have overshot. The winds were against us. They must’ve won, pulled us around the head of Cornwall and into the Channel.” He lapsed into silence, but still looked troubled.

  Don waited a few moments before prompting him. “Where are we, then?”

  The old man thrust out his bottom lip and shook his head. “I don’t recognise this coastline. We were drifting for a whole day.” He laughed again, but there was no humour in it. “Portsmouth? Brighton? Maybe even Hastings… I don’t know.”

  He looked unsettled for a moment longer, then his face cleared, and a thin smile touched his lips. “Still, spilt milk and all that—”

  Whatever that meant, Don thought.

  “We’re here. That’s all that matters. We should just get some sleep and see what we find tomorrow.” He lay down and closed his eyes.

  They lapsed into silence.

  Don lay with his back to the sea and kept watch over the trees, unable to shake the creeping sensation that had settled along the back of his neck.

  Billy sat beside him, twiddling the remains of the matchstick they had used between her fingers as her eyelids grew heavier. She inspected the charred tip, her brow furrowed, and said, “How do you make matches?”

  Don smiled. “Will you ever stop asking questions?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe when I know everything, like you and Grandpa.”

  Don settled into the sand and gazed at the sky. “I have no idea how to make matches,” he said.

  Billy recoiled. Her face contorted, as though she’d tasted something bitter. “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you know everything.”

  “No.”

  Billy looked at the match, offended by its existence. She turned it over in her hands and threw occasional glances in his direction. “If you don’t know how to make matches, then how do we have them?”

  “We found them.”

  “Who made them?”

  “Others.”

  Billy looked about. “Where are they?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Billy seemed confused by the concept of there being knowledge that Don didn’t have immediate access to.

  “You need phosphorus and potassium chlorate to make matches,” the old man said without warning. His eyes were closed, but his voice was strong and awake. He sounded amused by the turn of events.

  Billy looked at the old man and then back to Don. “You lied?”

  Don blinked, taken aback. “No.”

  “You do know everything.”

  “No.”

  “Grandpa knows how to make matches.”

  Don leaned over and pulled her towards him. “Grandpa’s older than I am, and so he knows more than I do.”

  “How does he know more?”

  “He asked his father questions, like I asked him questions and like you ask me questions. But I never asked him how to make matches.”

  What Don failed to mention was that his father had survived the end of the Old World. Billy knew nothing of it. To her, their lives were merely the latest in an eternal struggle for survival in a world full of inanimate knickknacks.

  It was better that way, and Don had done his best to safeguard her ignorance.

  “Oh.” She looked at the old man, who now looked as though he could be asleep. “How old is Grandpa?”

  She looked fascinated. Don suspected that, so far
as she was concerned, her grandfather had been present at the creation of the world.

  “Almost seventy, so far as I know.”

  Billy looked horrified that the old man had been forced to live for such an inordinate length of time. “Does he know everything?”

  “No, nobody knows everything.”

  “But he knows a lot?”

  “He’s a gifted man.”

  “Who gave him his gift?”

  Don’s patience was waning, and he was beginning to slip away towards sleep. “Nobody, he was born that way.”

  Billy seemed to be following suit, yet her mouth continued to work, as though independent of her mind. Just when he thought she might have drifted off, she turned towards the fire and sighed. “New Land looks like home,” she said.

  Don grunted, on the edge of sleep. “What were you expecting?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Something different, maybe.”

  A few minutes later, the pace of her breathing relaxed. She was out.

  Don hauled himself into a seated position to stoke the fire, barely suppressing a coughing fit. Once certain the flames would burn for a while longer, he curled around Billy, smelling traces of lemon in her hair—her mother’s scent—as sleep overtook him.

  He dreamed of better times.

  THIRD INTERLUDE

  The storm had descended within moments. Alex lost his footing upon the crest of the largest hill for miles and crashed to the bottom of a steep ravine. While his face was smeared with thick, stinking mud, thunder clapped above. He clung to his bag, toppling end over end, until flung face first against waterlogged rock. Gasping, he stared up at the blackened clouds as his battered body sang with fresh agony.

  The dog was beside him moments later, yelping in distress, but her cries were barely audible over the roar of the heavens. She tugged at the hem of his trousers until he waved her away.

  He groaned and turned over, staring along the ravine and out over the surrounding moorland. Naked granite boulders set in boggy fields of windswept heath were already drowned under an inch of water.

  The hills were now skewed by perspective such that they bore down on him on either side, rendered monstrous cliffs.

  Beneath a flash of lightning he blundered along the ravine, following the cascading rainwater. His clothes were heavy rags, clinging to his skin. His bag, having been carefully protected, was the only thing that hadn’t been ruined.

  After ten minutes, through the enshrouding haze he saw the cottage. Perched atop a distant rise, visible in silhouette only, the oasis seemed to beckon him, welcoming him with open arms.

  As he drew closer, the storm grew fiercer, tearing at his clothes, trying to rip him from the side of the hill. After what seemed like an eternity he left the ravine and reached the hilltop upon which the cottage rested. He approached, uncertain.

  Uneven whitewashed walls, crooked beams and windows cut into diamond lites by diagonal muntins sat beneath a low, thatched roof. An encircling picket fence guarded a garden of hardy plants against the moorland, failing to quite disguise the crumbling remains of an outdoor privy. The gate flapped in the wind, dragging against a skeletal patch of feather grass, and the door had been left slightly ajar.

  Alex paused. It was a stark contrast to its formerly pleasant silhouette. Up close it was decrepit, creaking, unsettled.

  The dog seemed to sense his hesitation. She had ceased her yelping and stood beside him, low on her haunches, eyeing the cottage with suspicion.

  He stood beyond the gate with the rain crashing down upon him and called out to the storm, “Hello!”

  Only a rolling thunderclap answered.

  He took a last glance around at the barren moor before pushing his way through the gate and across the threshold.

  Inside, all was damp and cold and darkness. An unpleasant, musty smell filled his nose. He faced a fireplace, set against a far wall, nestled within a ring of threadbare furniture. Edging inside, he closed the door against the storm. It snapped shut with a reverberating rattle, an ugly sound that hung in the air, taunting him, jangling in the recesses of distant rooms.

  Alex remained still as he acclimatised, his senses overloaded from fighting the storm. His skin danced with the ghosts of raindrops and his cheeks throbbed as blood began to return to them.

  The dog, having tired of his reservations, scrambled forwards, spinning in tight circles by the fireplace, spraying the walls with rainwater. Once dry, she set about prowling the periphery of the room, sniffing each object in turn.

  Alex staggered after her, leaving long streaks of mud on bowed hardwood floorboards. Besides the squelch of his footsteps and the hum of the rain against the thatch, the cottage was noiseless. He had grown used to quiet homes, but here the silence still sat awkwardly, draped like a blanket over every surface.

  “Hello?” he called again. Only a cracked, uneven echo returned from the farthest rooms.

  He lingered a moment longer before advancing into the living room and, satisfied that he was alone, tore his dripping jacket from his shoulders. He cast it away into the kitchen, along with his boots and pullover, and then dropped into the nearest armchair.

  Exhaustion swept over him immediately. His eyes drooped despite the cold, and he sank low into the cushions. A blissful sensation swept through him, drawing him towards sleep.

  He decided he would stay in the chair for a little while, rest for a minute—just a minute—and then get himself dry…

  Had a scream not cut through the silence like a lance, he would have fallen asleep without another thought. But it did come, with such suddenness that he was on his feet and standing before the door of the nearest bedroom before he’d had time to do anything but utter a wordless cry.

  When his weary mind caught up with his body, however, his blood ran cold. Broken and riddled with a low-pitched gargle, the cry was unmistakably that of a baby.

  Panic, raw and primal, surged in his gut. His bones suddenly felt brittle, and bile was rising into his throat. He looked at the closed door before him, listening to the choked, screeching wail, aghast.

  His hand reached for the handle of its own accord and pushed the door open. He was left looking in at a darkened room, sweat pouring from his forehead and mingling with the rainwater upon his crown.

  The room was as dim and dull as the fireside, but the air was drier, and had a foul odour about it, one that tickled the back of his throat.

  Panic was on the verge of overcoming him, and his legs had tensed, preparing to send him running. But then the wailing reached a new crescendo, plastering him to the spot.

  Lying beside an unmade bed—upon the pillows of which rested a pair of sleeping masks and the collars of empty pyjamas—was a pine cot, smothered in a nest of blankets, from which rose a pudgy fist.

  Alex approached on shaking legs. He was desperate to escape—to hurl himself back into the storm and take his chances with hypothermia—but still he approached on shaking knees, staring open-mouthed at the cot’s occupant.

  A pair of green eyes, insectivorous in proportion, gazed up at him. The infant clasped its hands together with a blank expression on its face, blinking. Alex felt a thud deep within his chest, unable to break its gaze. Neither of them moved again for what seemed like an age, growing accustomed to each other’s presence.

  The infant must have been in the cot for days, and during that time clearly hadn’t been fed, changed, or had anything to drink. On closer inspection, he saw that it was closer to a toddler than a baby. It had appeared so small at first due to dehydration; it was almost pruned, with colourless lips and sunken eye sockets. He was certain that it would be unable to move to save its life, let alone stand.

  He bounded from the room in search of water. His mind was still too shocked to offer up thoughts of any clarity, but his limbs were content to operate under their own power, marching him into the kitchen to remove any containers from the cupboards. He then carried an armful out to the garden to fill in the rain.

&
nbsp; By the time he fled back inside, he was shivering, and could do no more until he had hunted for replacement clothing. Also draping a thick duvet from the spare room over his shoulders, he proceeded to carry out his tasks with at least some semblance of comfort.

  Having grown bored with exploring, the dog had slumped down on the floor beside the armchair, and watched him with faint curiosity.

  In the study he found thick piles of tax returns that would be of little use to their owner now, ideal fuel. He hauled them to the living room fireplace and dumped them into the sooty grate. By the time he’d fished his matches from the depths of his bag and the flames had caught hold, the toddler’s cries had begun to weaken. The sound of its slurring, half-uttered whimpers was far worse than the previous wailing.

  He stoked the flames for just long enough to be sure that they wouldn’t go out, and rushed back to the bedroom. At the sight of him, the infant’s wailing resumed. Desperation now filled its eyes, and it proceeded to work itself into a state of giddiness, crying with such force that its face turned a shade of puce.

  Alex reached down and wrapped his arms around it, retching at the stench. He was shocked by how cold it was to the touch, how rubbery its skin felt against his, how feebly it held its head—how very close it was to death.

  He hurried to the fireplace, where he set the child down, throwing off the duvet hanging around his shoulders and building a kind of nest in which to settle the wriggling creature. Sliding the nest along the floor until he was certain that the child wasn’t in danger of rolling into the grate, he coaxed the fire to full life and stood back.

  The warmth stemmed the child’s cries, but only for a moment, during which time it glanced into the flickering flames, its eyes bulging with wonder. But then a strange expression crossed its face—perhaps as it had remembered it had a good deal more crying to do—and then resumed its wailing.

  Shivering once again—the time taken to light the fire had been enough for the chill of the storm to have eaten its way to his bones—and now also cursing, Alex dashed back out into the rain. He collected as many of the filled containers as he could manage, returning with a gust of wind at his heels.