by Chris Harris
For most of them it was an easy decision for the jury to make. The tearful testimony of one of the women, as she described the acts committed by the individual against her, was enough to condemn the man to death.
Pleas for clemency were granted only twice, when a woman spoke up to defend the individuals in question, describing some act of kindness that had saved her or someone else from unnecessary suffering.
Mike’s trial was the quickest of all.
Finally, the only people remaining to be dealt with were Rick and Lucy.
They both had to be dragged to stand trial and they refused to cooperate in any way. After the charges were read, I stood and gave an account of how he had killed Ian after stealing our community’s Land Rover all those months ago.
Further testimonies were given by quite a few of the women, Mel and Louise included, and these painted a grim picture of cruelty, domination and a selfish disregard for anyone except themselves.
When they were offered the chance to defend their actions, all they did was cry and plead for forgiveness. They offered no justifications for their actions. Finally, Harry ended the matter by declaring them guilty and they were given the death sentence.
The usual form of execution was by firing squad, but Harry gave the order for Rick, Lucy and Mike to be hanged for their crimes. No other sentence, he declared, could recompense for their vile and selfish actions.
The three of them were dragged away to await their fates.
As was the tradition, we all drew lots for firing squad duty.
I was one of the men elected.
This would be a first for me and I expected to be more nervous and apprehensive about it. Yes, I’d killed people in self-defence, but this would be the first time I had been asked to take the life of someone who was not an immediate threat to me or the people around me.
But I felt no sympathy for any of them. They had to die for what they had done. The liberal world of forgiveness and compassion had disappeared without trace, and been replaced by one in which every wrong action had to be punished.
The condemned men were lined up, five at time, facing ten of us.
Once I’d carried out my duty, I walked away and spent half an hour on my own. I noticed some of the others did the same.
Guilty or not guilty, it would have been wrong to feel nothing about taking their lives. That, I reasoned, was what set me apart from people like them.
As a suitable gallows had yet to be built, Rick, Lucy and Mike’s sentences would be carried out the following morning. It would also give the couple time to say goodbye to their children.
While we had no qualms about what was going to happen to their parents, Michael and Richard were a different matter. Their parents would die because of their actions, but essentially the children had done nothing wrong. And yet having your parents killed was about as big a punishment as you could get.
We couldn’t think of a solution. All the women agreed that the children had displayed vindictive behaviour. They had abused their position and enjoyed having “servants” to tend to them.
They had made a game out of inventing misdemeanours and reporting them to Mike, who could always be relied upon to administer swift and harsh punishment on the person who had fallen foul of them.
I was sure a psychologist could have found all sorts of reasons and excuses for their behaviour, but as far as I was concerned, they had been precocious, horrible little individuals before and having a father with so much power had done nothing to temper their dispositions since.
We asked the question, but understandably, none of the women would consider taking them on. I couldn’t blame them. They would be a constant reminder of a terrible period in their lives and they hadn’t exactly endeared themselves to anyone. For the same reason, I didn’t think it would be appropriate for them to return to the road with us.
Though not a satisfactory solution by any means, it was finally decided that they would be taken to the base and placed in the care of a foster family.
They would be monitored from time to time and hopefully they would grow up into the kind of men who would be an asset to the country, rather than another couple of bad apples who were likely to cause more trouble.
If they took the second path, that bridge would have to be crossed when we came to it.
In terms of the transport on site, the good news was that the six Land Rovers parked in the yard were all in good working order.
Our group was offered all of them, but we decided that three would be enough. We already had a few military vehicles permanently stationed at our compound and they were infrequently used. We told the people at the base to use them as they saw fit.
With Captain Digby and his men taking care of guard duty and sorting through and allocating any useful supplies and equipment from the hotel, we found ourselves with the luxury of a few hours off.
After returning and dismantling our OP in the woods, we took the time to talk to and get to know the women we had helped to rescue.
Although they were all still coming to terms with their sudden release, they were obviously elated at their good fortune.
We asked them where they would like to go and answered all their questions about the base and our compound to the best of our abilities.
I explained that there were regular trips between the two locations and therefore if it didn’t work out for them at one place, they could easily move to the other. About half of them said they would like to try life at our compound first, as they liked our description of the small friendly community we had created. The rest preferred the idea of being part of a far larger and better defended community.
So far, Mel had not indicated where she wanted to go, and watching from the sidelines, I noticed that she was constantly looking at Paul when she thought no one was looking.
Paul, for his part, had made several attempts to engage her in conversation, but so far, he’d had little success.
As he was blind to the obvious, I took him by the elbow and led him away so that we could have a private chat.
Following my success with Allan and Michelle (well OK, that was partly down to Becky) I considered myself an expert on relationships. I’d said as much to Becky and to my annoyance she’d laughed so hard she couldn’t stand for five minutes. Women, I concluded, lacked the depth of understanding we men have at times.
“Paul!” I said brightly, “what’s up? Oh no, let me guess. Mel’s avoiding you like the plague and you don’t know why?”
Looking slightly uncomfortable, he said, “Yes. I know what she’s been through and I don’t want to upset her, but I would like to get to know her better. She just won’t look at me.”
“Trust me,” I said, “she is! Every time you aren’t looking at her, she’s watching you. Try this for a theory: she’s had a bloody terrible time of it. You turn up – her knight in shining armour - sickeningly muscle bound and handsome,”
I added, just to make him squirm a bit. “She likes you, but knows that you know what she’s been through. She probably, and very wrongly, I might add, feels ashamed and not very good about herself because of it.”
I clapped him on his shoulder. “Now, my young apprentice, why don’t you march in there, and tell her it would be great if she chose to come and stay with us because you’d really love to get to know her better? Tell her you understand that she’ll need some time but you think she’s the most incredibly brave and beautiful woman you’ve ever met. That should do for starters!”
He looked at me and his handsome face lit up. He turned and walked back towards the crowd, craning his neck to look for Mel.
“Don’t thank me, it’s what I do!” I called to his retreating back.
A few minutes later I could see a tearful but smiling Mel and a beaming Paul chatting away.
I couldn’t wait to tell Becky about my latest triumph, I thought smugly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I took a last glance through my rear-view mirror at the three bodi
es, slowly swinging from the gallows, as I drove down the driveway away from the hotel and turned towards home.
Harry, Paul and I had taken a vehicle each, leaving plenty of room for the six women, including Mel, Louise and Penny, who had chosen to return with us. The vehicles also contained the few personal possessions the women owned and all the supplies we had gathered from the hotel, which amounted to a very small amount of food, but a very large quantity of alcohol. On top of all that we had stacked various useful items we had scavenged from the hotel.
We’d only been away a few days, but we were all eager to get home and see our families and friends.
We knew that everyone would be busy preparing for the new arrivals and that they would receive the warmest welcome possible.
As I drove along, chatting to Louise and Penny, who had both chosen to travel with me, my mind wandered.
People attribute a lot of things that happen to Fate.
Other people call it coincidence, but Fate must be real.
How else could I be driving the very same car I had first sat in and started all those months ago, when I was helping Jerry and his family move.
I’d met Jerry before Day One of the event at a random encounter in the local cash and carry; was that Fate or coincidence?
The one thing that had been missing from our fledgling community had been medical expertise, and I’d managed to bump into and make friends with a doctor whose wife was a dentist. Fate?
The commander of the base was Jerry’s brother.
Our community had only survived because of the timely arrival of Colonel Jon Moore and his forces, who had not only helped us to defeat Gumin and his men, but had also wiped out the escaped prisoners, who would certainly have found us and annihilated us with their superior weapons and military training.
It was almost as if Fate needed good to prevail over evil and had therefore set in motion a chain of events that had led me to be sitting in a familiar vehicle, making my way back to my family after another successful mission.
All of this from a chance meeting at a cash and carry in Stirchley, Birmingham.
Fate?
Mind boggling really.
I dragged myself back to the present, and concentrated on the road and the conversation going on in the car.
After a few nights of interrupted rest and a full night of no sleep, I was glad I’d spent the previous night in a comfortable hotel bed. I knew that the arrival of new residents in our community would lead to a big celebration. Opportunities for a celebration didn’t come around very often, so we made the most of them when they did.
It was our way of compensating for all the hard work we had to put in to make the community thrive.
Festivals and public holidays in every corner of the globe must have developed for the same reason. People need to be able to let off steam occasionally and a good old party was one way of doing just that. I grinned to myself. The fact that I would be unloading a large amount of booze would help.
Hours later, long after we’d arrived home, I snuggled thankfully up to Becky in bed.
The new arrivals soon settled into the community. Over the first few days and weeks, they spent a lot of time with Michelle, Kim and Mandy who had all had similar experiences in the past.
Everyone else carried on as before, our time continually split between security work and community projects. We remained on high alert. To let your guard down for just one minute, could invite disaster. The only thing that would guarantee our safety would be our own vigilance.
The scavenging missions had all but ceased, as we had finally stripped out everything useful from the areas around us. Our scavenging missions had been replaced by long-range patrol and reconnaissance missions, lasting many days, systematically exploring an ever-widening radius around us.
They either bivouacked somewhere suitable or stayed with one of the friendly communities we had links with.
These patrols inevitably led to the discovery of more groups and individuals who had managed to survive.
Unfortunately, they also revealed the extent of the devastation caused by the plague. There were whole communities reduced to a scattering of rotting corpses. The really sad part was, there was clear evidence that some of them had been doing well. Like us, they’d had defences, weapons and storerooms full of food.
None of these things had been any use against the plague. Without the benefit of any advanced warning, they’d stood little chance.
As before, most of the people they encountered proved friendly, despite their initial reservations, once they realised that our intentions were good. Again, many of them signed up for government assistance and in return, agreed to contribute towards the country’s recovery.
If they were disinclined to be welcoming, then that was OK too. We left them to it, making a note of their location for future reference. If they’d been tough enough to survive for so long without help and didn’t want or need our assistance, then we had to respect that.
If they were overtly aggressive and attacked us without provocation, then plans were put in place to deal with them, as they would always be a threat to the brave new world we were trying to create.
More often than not, we were alerted to the presence of these groups by other communities in their locality, who had had been threatened or attacked by them.
Call us vigilantes, militia or a police force, we had the full backing and approval of the government and we knew that there was no room for that kind of hostility in the society we were working towards.
Back at the compound, the one thing that took up most of our time was Pete’s latest idea.
He called it Project Grow!
With the help of some experts at the base, he had managed to work out how much land we needed to cultivate and what variety of crops would work best, in order to feed us all and enable us to become fully self-sufficient.
His findings had shown that we didn’t have anywhere near enough land prepared. We considered clearing more back gardens, but we knew that this would be a huge task and would necessitate the removal of trees, paths etc.
The solution, once we’d thought of it, was obvious.
We’d looked before at the many allotments in the area and discounted them due to concerns about irrigation if we happened to have a long dry summer. Supplemental water couldn’t be drawn from a tap anymore.
Cannon Hill Park had proved to be the ideal location. A former recreational park, it was a huge open area covering hundreds of acres and was less than a mile away. It had large lakes that had been used for boating and the River Rea flowed alongside it. These sources would provide more than enough water for irrigation.
We just needed Russ to work his magic again.
Every available hand was called in to prepare the ground for planting and erect acres of polytunnels.
He was confident, with the work we had already done, which would soon be yielding fresh produce, that within a year we would be completely self-sufficient. In fact, we might even be producing a surplus.
The possibility of producing a surplus was something that had generated a lot of debate. Should we try to store it in case of future problems (e.g. crop failure or bad weather)? Or should we donate it to people who needed it? Or, as someone later suggested, could we trade it for something we needed?
The third suggestion opened up a further discussion about the future. Once the country had stabilised and people had settled down to the business of living, and given up trying to kill and steal from each other, then hopefully communities like ours would proliferate.
Possibly, depending on their locations, these other communities might all have something to offer and at this point we could foresee trade developing between them.
The amateur historians among us pointed out that this could also lead to wars being fought for control over the most productive areas.
Subjects like these became our favourite topics for discussion once the darkness was setting in and we’d stopped work to gathe
r together in the communal kitchen.
Of course, our arguments were all purely theoretical. We were still a long way from becoming self-sufficient, but at the same time, this was a turning point for our community. For the first time, we weren’t just thinking about surviving day-to-day, as we had been just after the event. And we weren’t just looking to the immediate future, as we had done when we had sufficient supplies to last us for a few months. Now we were beginning to think about the years ahead.
This new confidence of ours would stand us in good stead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Summer had finally arrived and the community was thriving. After a long convalescence, Allan was back to full health and had resumed his role as security officer.
Having undergone a series of operations to repair the damage to his face, Gary had returned with his wife and daughter and settled back into his life among us. Despite his scars and the loss of his eye, he was happy to be home and said he felt grateful to be alive.
Harry had become a permanent resident on the road, and he and Kim were very much in love. They had moved in together and willingly taken on Isaac and Lottie, and were now a very close and loving family unit.
Harry had even taken Kim back to the base to meet the Queen, Prince Philip and his brother and sister-in-law (William and Kate).
She came back beaming and was immediately swept away by the women for a full debrief.
Harry watched them go and picked up a can of beer. He took a swig, looked at us, winked and said,
“Sorted!”
Michelle and Allan’s relationship was also flourishing, and despite frequent enquiries from all of us, they refused to confirm whether they had set a date for their wedding yet. We suspected that something was afoot, but no matter how hard we tried to wheedle it out of them, they remained tight-lipped on the matter.
My main worry, which was an indication of how well we were doing, was how long my precious hoard of chocolate hobnobs was going to last me. During the madness of stocking up with as much food as we could buy, prior to the event, I had bought every single packet I could lay my hands on. With careful rationing, I’d managed to eke them out for as long as possible, but now I was down to my last few packs.