With the Creeks tending to little Norman, and Lucian resting with a concussion, guarded against sleep by a watchful Oliver, the remaining three sat with their bowls pushed aside, twiddling their fingers.
James swallowed the last of his own soup with difficulty, glancing between Alex and Agatha, trying not to make a sound with the clink of his spoon. The silence in the kitchen was stretched tight as the drying deer hide on the back step.
Alex tapped the tabletop and stared into the candlelight with an ugly expression on his face. He hadn’t said a word, nor moved from the table, since that morning.
James watched him for as long as he could bear, while the bulge in his throat grew larger still, then muttered, “You shouldn’t have made him go away.”
Alex started and glanced at James, as though surprised to see him. “What?” he said. The ugly expression on his lips was squeezed into a polite smile.
“You shouldn’t have sent him away.” James’s voice didn’t shudder as it had at first. Now anger had taken hold. Every fibre in his body wanted him to leap up onto the table, to shout and scream.
The polite smile on Alex’s face slipped away as fast as it had come, replaced by a deep frown. “I had to,” he whispered.
“He’s going to get lost.”
“He can’t stay here, James.” Alex sighed and slouched back. “He’s dangerous, as much to us as himself.”
“We can’t just send him away!” James yelled. His chair flew back with a squeal, and then he was on his feet, fists clenched. The rage he felt for Paul came pouring out, directed instead at Alex. “He can’t find food, water. He’ll die.”
Alex’s tone remained even, but James saw his jaw tighten. “James, Paul isn’t like the men you’ve read about in your stories. He’s ill. He would have killed you.”
“He’ll starve out there, and you’re just going to let him. You bastard!”
“James!” Agatha hissed. Open-mouthed, she drew her fingertips to her lips.
James paused. He blinked, then looked down at his clenched fists. The rage drained away at the sight of her, pooling down in his legs. He sighed, looked back to Alex, and pleaded, “If we’re supposed to be saving the world, then how can we leave him? Aren’t people like him the ones we’re trying to save?”
Alex straightened. He said nothing. The ugly purse to his lips returned as he exchanged a look with Agatha. Then he began tapping the tabletop with his finger once more. “Bed time,” he muttered.
“But—”
“Go to bed, James.” Alex didn’t raise his voice, but his brow had fallen low, and a dangerous rumble lurked at the back of his throat. He didn’t turn to meet James’s gaze.
James knew there would be no arguing.
He trudged away without another word and passed into the corridor. From the bedrooms he could hear the others whispering, but nobody came out to see what the commotion was about. He paused just beyond the kitchen threshold and hung in the shadows, listening.
“You’re too hard on ’im,” Agatha whispered.
Alex, loud and clear: “He’s too young to understand.”
“O’ course he is—he’s far too young to ’ave had to watch what happened today. But you can’t leave ’im in the dark. If you want ’im to be the man he’s goin’ to have to be, you’re goin’ to have to let ’im live a real life. All he knows are words from books writ by dead men and women. It’s all black and white to ’im, right and wrong, good and bad. We can’t afford ’im to be like that.”
“I’m trying to give him the best education that I can.”
“Tha’ won’t be enough, Alex,” Agatha hissed. “He’s got to live. He has to feel and know wha’ he’s fighting for, not just be told tha’ it’s the right thing to do.”
Alex sighed. “There’s no time. There’s never enough time.”
A pause, then, “Sometimes I wonder if you put your dreams before ’im.”
Neither of them said anything for a long time. Alex resumed drumming upon the tabletop.
James’s heart hammered against the walls of his chest. His teeth were grinding together. He was desperate to run, to be gone from it all, and to forget that any of it had ever happened. Yet he stood his ground. He had to hear the last of it.
“I love that boy,” Alex whispered.
“We all love ’im,” Agatha said. “But do you love ’im more than that picture in your head?”
Alex didn’t reply. Over a minute of silence ticked by, but the only sound emanating from the kitchen was the rattle of fingers upon the tabletop.
James slid away into the corridor, his gaze fixed on the floor. He entered his bedroom—still cluttered with myriad children’s toys that he hadn’t touched in years—and climbed into his bed without saying a word to Oliver or Lucian. He stared at the ceiling until morning.
*
They found Paul’s body three days later, not far from the house, propped against the trunk of an old oak. His unseeing, dead eyes still bore traces of sadness. His body was slumped, an empty bottle of bourbon held in a claw-like grip. His legs, stuck out in front of him, were clad in only a thin pair of trousers.
He had been banished without a coat, undergarments, or socks, and died of exposure. James couldn’t help imagining him looking over at the house, the drink dulling the cold, as he had slipped away.
Alex didn’t speak for two weeks after his funeral.
For the first time in his life, James found himself doubting not only his destiny, but that of all things.
XXV
“I’m not going,” Robert said. He’d just spent the last hour bringing Alexander and Lucian up to speed on what had happened in the forest. Now he’d retreated to his front doorstep and squeezed into the threshold so that he filled the entire doorway, determined not to give anybody so much as a hint of an invitation to follow.
“We need you,” Lucian said.
Robert merely shook his head and repeated, “I’m not going. I’m staying right here.” He paused, listening to the minute noises emanating from the living room. “We both are.”
Twenty men on horseback had gathered in the street just beyond his garden gate. All of them now wore frowns of acute disquiet. Lucian and Alex stood only a few steps from his door, neither of them bothering to conceal their crestfallen expressions. They didn’t argue or protest, but still they stared, planted to the spot.
“We don’t know where to go,” Lucian said.
“We’ve stationed everyone we could get up there.” Robert looked over his shoulder at the ancient windup clock upon the wall. “The next changeover is at thirteen-hundred. I suggest you get up there and wait for them to break cover.”
He leaned past the threshold so that the house no longer obstructed his line of sight, and pointed towards the hilltop. “Up there,” he said.
Alex turned away without a further moment’s pause. Lucian’s brow flickered, and for a moment he looked close to saying something. Then he followed suit, shaking his head. They retreated to their mounts, their faces stolid, and wheeled to face along the street without a word of protest. Yet Robert sensed anger in the vehemence of their nods of salutation.
Lucian led the group away without looking back. The rumble of hooves upon muddied tarmac filled Main Street, heading for the city’s edge.
Alex, meanwhile, lingered beside the garden gate. “Lucian and I will be heading back to London before dusk. I’m leaving everyone under your command.” His eyes were hard as diamonds, devoid of any trace of charm. Here was the real Alexander, without his mask, the man behind the messiah. Robert knew that he was one of the few people who would ever see it. His voice was cold and harried. “Things in London aren’t good. We might not be able to get back. I need you to hold the fort.”
Robert bit back a hasty retort. There were people counting on him. “I’ll do my part.”
“Are you sure you’re up to the job?”
“Is there anybody else?”
Alex’s gaze flickered. His mask had already
returned, his voice wrangled back to an even keel. He cleared his throat. “Good luck.”
With that, he kicked at his mount’s sides and raced after the others.
Robert retreated inside once he was out of sight and hurried back to the living room. Every candle in the house had been lit and flung into myriad corners. The sheer number made the room seem ablaze, lining its periphery, balanced upon books and teetering on the mantelpiece.
Sarah’s voice sounded from the room’s depths, hollow and toneless. “Are they gone?”
He caught sight of her figure amidst the sofa’s shadows, her knees drawn up to her chin, rocking back and forth. Her eyes were fixed on the fire in the grate, wide and unblinking. She had barely spoken since he’d dragged her from the forest; hadn’t eaten, nor slept, despite Heather’s insistence that she rest.
“Yes.” He manoeuvred around candle-laden trestles and discarded comforters, trying to reach her. The stifling heat rose up in waves, bringing a film of perspiration out on his skin before he could take even a few steps.
Heather sat with her arm draped over Sarah’s shoulder. He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that she’d been awake since the day before. From what he’d seen of the traffic flowing back and forth between Main Street and the clinic, she’d been dealing with clamouring patients without pause.
After the attack on the wind farm, people’s curious range of ailments had increased tenfold. Most were headaches and muscle pains, while some complained of difficulty breathing. But nobody could fool even themselves. It was a thinly veiled exercise in seeking comfort in any way they could. Affecting a dicky hip was a small sin if it meant half an hour of attention and a sit-down with somebody who cared.
It was harmless, but still Robert admired her for holding out so long. Now she looked utterly defeated, her hair wispy and lank, her white coat splattered with sputum and other body fluids.
Robert came to a standstill beside them and gritted his teeth against the tense silence that followed. There was nothing to be done. They couldn’t leave the house, not now, not even for some air. Everyone had been ordered to stay inside, like rats holed up in the floorboards beneath a tabby’s basket. Yet he couldn’t let them stagnate. They needed to keep moving, to maintain an even state of mind. “We should open the curtains,” he said. “We’re safe here.”
Heather looked up at him, baggy-eyed and ashen-faced. “Not from what you’ve told us,” she muttered.
Robert took a step closer to her, moving as delicately as his lumbering body would allow. “We’re safe,” he repeated. Despite being in awe of her steadfast work at the clinic, he was almost snarling through bared teeth. “I’ve got half the city on watch. Nobody’s getting through.”
He ambled over to where Sarah sat and crouched before her, taking her hands. Her deathly white palms were dwarfed by his, yet still he gasped at how cold they were—like slabs of ice. “Are you alright?” he said.
Sarah looked at him as though from very far away, as though she couldn’t quite see him at all. She nodded, and attempted a smile, but her lips wobbled and tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. After a moment she fell forwards and threw her arms over him. She began to shake as soon as her head came to rest on his shoulder, muffling fresh sobs against his shirt.
He brushed her hair and hushed her as the fire crackled and the candles danced. “It’s going to be fine,” he whispered. As he spoke, though he would never show it, his own conviction withered. The wolves were circling closer, and now there was blood on the air.
XXVI
The thumping of twenty steeds’ hooves upon hard soil, combined with as many war cries from the men astride them, echoed within the confines of the valley, amplified to a thunderous rumble. To anybody in the surrounding area, the party would have sounded ten times as large.
Alexander led the charge over the crest of the hill, rifle balanced atop his saddle. Six riders banked away to either side, while the rest stayed their course, following him into a headlong descent. The group enveloped the office complex, each rider poised to open fire at a moment’s notice, orbiting the chain-link fence.
Yet, as they reached the valley floor and the horses’ hooves ceased to resonate, the resultant silence was deafening. Not a thing stirred amongst the tower block’s remains. The entire valley was still and quiet, dead as the darkest Old World wreckage.
Alexander blinked, casting wild glances around at the surrounding hilltops, half expecting to see their enemy lining the tree line, ready to strike. For a moment he cursed himself, convinced that he’d led them into a trap—onto low ground, where they could be picked off without trouble.
But there was nobody there.
The others’ war cries trailed off without dignity. They slowed to a canter, then a trot. Then each rider stopped dead and exchanged disconcerted glances with their neighbour.
Alex had been sure that they would be met by an immediate volley of defensive gunfire. But after a further minute of half-hearted circling, nothing had stirred. The building sat derelict, nestled amongst overgrown layers of nettles and ferns.
Quiet as a tomb.
Alexander called a halt, and any residual movement died away. As one, they stared at the main entrance, which had been riddled with ragged bullet holes. A small, crimson lump lay nestled in the grass before the doors, unmoving. Beside it was the unmistakable profile of a stunted pistol.
“What do you think?” Lucian said, close behind Alexander’s shoulder.
“They’re gone.” Alexander urged his mount forwards with a kick of his spurs.
The other men followed suit cautiously. From every direction, they drew closer to the concrete walls. Alexander listened all the while with one ear cocked, and still heard nothing from within the building except for the monotonous whistle of a stray breeze.
But the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end all the same.
He and Lucian were the first to dismount. They alighted on tiptoes and flattened themselves against the edge of the building, beckoning for the others to follow. The ragged hole left in the tower block’s side by its fallen wall was only feet away—a gaping, unstable maw that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Alex approached it nonetheless. Taking a deep breath, he leapt up onto a slab of fallen concrete. His feet met the surface with an unexpected lack of traction, and he wobbled momentarily before pitching himself towards whatever lay beyond.
He landed with a hollow clatter, squinting amidst inky blackness, and managed to pick out the edges of what looked to be a stairwell. It was cool and damp. A pervading odour rose up in waves, musky but sweet, catching at the back of his throat.
Lucian had leapt in behind him by the time his eyes had begun to adjust, and he could see well enough to tell that they stood upon a narrow landing. One flight of stairs down was a rusted ‘G’, which he guessed indicated the ground floor. The flight above them, however, led to nowhere; the upper landing had fallen away along with the outer wall.
Down was the only way.
With a clatter, three more men joined them upon the crumbling platform. Elsewhere in the building they could hear similar clatters as the others invaded through alternate entrances. They descended towards the rusted ‘G’ and passed through the doorway beneath it. Beyond, the darkness seemed to grow only thicker.
Alex remained upon the threshold for some time, uncertain. Craning his neck, desperate to catch even the smallest detail, he placed his hand on the wall nearest to him for support, and cried out: it was slicked with something akin to treacle.
He drew his hand away, but it was too dark to see even his own palm. Cursing, he stepped through the doorway, nearly yelling in fright when his foot hooked on something lying across the threshold. Freezing in place, he stroked the trigger of his rifle while his eyes roamed the blackness, fumbling with a small torch attached to his belt.
“Think that’s a good idea?” Lucian uttered. “If we’re not alone, we’ll be made.”
Alex
held the torch aloft. “There’s nobody here,” he said, and thumbed the switch. A beam of light burst from its tip and pooled against the wall ahead, revealing what lay before them.
Revealing horror incarnate.
“Jesus,” Lucian whispered.
Every wall was dripping with streaks of blood, every surface, every pane of glass and rotten furnishing, contrasting to such an extreme with the grey walls and drab plywood that it seemed to scream out at them. Alex dipped the beam as fast as he could, but still the others’ rush of gasps and bouts of disgusted gagging deafened him.
Turning the torch beam upon the floor, he saw that his foot was wedged beneath the torso of a young woman. Half her face was calm and untroubled, as though she merely slept. The other half had been cleaved away, right down to the naked skull.
A curious mixture of fury and paralysing shock came over him. He turned around as his stomach churned. As though from afar he heard the others retching and reeling away from the carpet of bodies that lay in every direction.
Other shafts of light were spearing into the darkness elsewhere on the ground floor as the other teams reached the lobby. Each revealed only more bodies, carved up and motionless on the ground.
From somewhere across the lobby, Lucian’s voice rang out, “Anybody find any survivors?”
A few nauseated grunts issued from each corner. All reported in the negative. A series of booming footsteps heralded Lucian’s approach. A moment later he was once again at Alexander’s side. “Robert said they tried to fight back,” he said, and shook his head. “Look at these people. They’re wives. Kids. Old folks. They didn’t stand a chance.” He shone his own light on the girl at Alex’s feet, and closed his eyes against the sight of her face. “These people were executed. None of them were armed.”
Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) Page 37