Mike did little other than spend time with Sammy, Jake, Annie and John. While everyone was kept busy, nobody focussed on what lay ahead: the possibility that they were on a fool’s errand, the possibility that when they got to Scotland, this wonderful home by the sea that Mike had promised them had been turned into a graveyard for past and future residents.
*
It was early afternoon when Raj lowered the anchor in a small cove just south of the shoreline near the cottage. Mike stood by his side. The pair exchanged nervous glances rather than victorious slaps on the back. In a few minutes, they would know whether it had all been worthwhile. The weather over the past few days had been warm, the sea had been calm and, as they looked out over the rippling blue water, they wondered where the world they once knew had gone.
There had been a long discussion the evening before about who would go ashore first, who would see if the pot of gold was there. Mike had insisted he and Emma should be the ones. He argued it was the most obvious choice as they knew the geography of the landscape better than anyone, and also that they were both capable fighters and very agile, should they need to make an escape. The suggestion was made as much to appease his sister as anything else, but he was sure that if he suggested going alone, as he would have preferred, he’d get shouted down by all present.
“We want to see Nanna Fletcher, too,” said Jake, as Mike passed his rucksack to Emma, who was already standing in the dinghy.
“You will, Jakey,” replied Mike. “We’ve just got to make sure she’s here. She might have gone to stay with one of her friends in the village.”
Sammy tiptoed up and hugged Mike. “Say hi to Nanna from me.” Then she took hold of Jake’s hand and marched him down below deck. “What have I said to you about being patient?” she asked him as they disappeared out of sight.
“She was born forty years old, that one,” said Mike to the others.
“Pot, kettle, black,” said Lucy, prompting smiles from Raj and Talikha. “Look after him, Emma,” she joked, trying to hide her genuine concern.
“Don’t worry about him, he’s like a bad penny. He always comes back,” she replied, placing the rucksack next to where Mike would be sitting.
“Take care, handsome,” said Lucy, kissing Mike briefly on the lips.
“I’m not worried about getting back here, that’s a given. It’s what we’ll find when we get there...” He squeezed her hand, nodded at Raj and Talikha and boarded the motor dinghy.
The pair had agreed to row rather than risk the noise of the motor alerting anyone or anything to their presence. It was about a quarter of a mile, and it was hard going at first, but they soon got into a rhythm. The water remained tranquil and the gentle lapping of the shallow waves was almost hypnotic as they moved through the water. They rowed inland and tied the dinghy to a large rock out of sight of their gran’s house, which was built on the hillside about thirty metres from the shoreline. Mike picked up his rucksack and offered Emma a hand out of the boat, but she chose not to take it as she bounded onto the wet black stone. He gave her one of the shotguns from the rucksack and took the other for himself.
They moved from rock to rock, heading up and across, ensuring they didn’t break their cover. They paused when the landscape gave way to earth and grass. The pair peeked over the top of the coarse stone to grab a first look at their gran’s cottage. It had nearly two acres of land with it, but most of that was at the back of the house. It looked as picturesque as they remembered it. The sun shone brightly against the clean white walls. They couldn’t see the garden from the angle they were at, but as their eyes followed the wall along to the gate and outbuildings, they caught sight of their gran’s multi-coloured camper van. They looked at each other and for the first time since their altercation on the deck of the cruiser, they shared a smile. Mike held out his hand to his sister, hoping she would give it a forgiving squeeze. She did. He pulled it back and gestured that they should advance, but stay low.
They snaked their way up to the long garden wall. Mike poked his head up and brought it back down quickly.
“What is it?” Emma whispered, seeing the look of concern that had washed over his face.
“Another vehicle. A minibus parked outside the gate.”
The house was set back from the shore and there was a steep incline as the road from the cottage went up a hundred metres to reach the Lonbaig road. It was difficult but not impossible to see the cottage buildings from the road, and now Mike was concerned that opportunistic raiders may have happened by and seized the well-positioned property for themselves.
“We’ll head around and go in through the back door. Stay low and keep your eyes and ears open,” said Mike.
“What do we do when we get in? I don’t know if I can kill someone, Mike. I’ve killed RAMs, yes, but it’s not the same.” She swallowed nervously.
“Whoever is in there might have found the place empty. Gran’s camper is there, but she could be long gone. If that’s the case, we’ll explain we’re the rightful owners and they need to move on. If they’ve taken this place by force, you don’t need to worry about killing anyone, because I’ll take them to pieces with my bare hands,” he said, with a look that sent a quake of unease down Emma’s spine.
“Why does it come so easily to you, Mike?”
Mike let out a small laugh. She had deliberately asked why and not how. “You know why, Em.” He looked towards her, wondering whether to carry on, wondering whether guilt might cloud her mind when action was needed, but then he decided to go on anyway. “When you’re ten years old and curled up in a ball in one corner of the kitchen while your drunken father is booting the crap out of you, you have an epiphany. It’s the simple, uncomplicated realisation that some people just don’t deserve to live. I think a lot of people pin too high a value on human life, Em. We’re animals, just like everything else that walks the Earth. Just because we have this elevated opinion of ourselves doesn’t change the fact that we have basic instincts to survive and protect those close to us. When I kill someone, it’s to survive and protect. Ultimately, that’s how we’re made. Civilisation is an illusion that’s been constructed over thousands of years. It’s a house of cards. Once it collapses we revert back to the laws of the jungle, and those who don’t, get devoured. If it takes you and the others longer to realise that, fair enough. I’ll keep doing the killing until then. But at some point, Em, you’re going to have to realise that if we’re going to survive, we’ve got to adapt.” He paused to let what he had said sink in. “Now, like I said, there might be a good explanation as to why someone’s in that house, but if there isn’t, I’ll deal with them. Can you handle that or do you want to go back to the boat?”
Her brother had taken beatings to protect her and her mother from an abusive father. He had sacrificed his childhood to become a man when his family needed him, and since this disaster started he had kept them alive, always striving to do the right thing. He was the best person she knew and if he bore no weight from taking the lives of others, surely that meant it had been the right thing to do.
“Don’t think for a second I would think any less of you if you wanted to go back, Em. The fact is, you’ve proved yourself a thousand times over. I am so proud of you, I can’t even put it into words. If you don’t want to go in there, I can handle this by myself.” He squeezed his sister’s hand tightly.
“There’s a sixteen-seat minibus. Christ knows how many people are inside the house and you’re happy to go in by yourself? I love you, Mike, I really do, more than anyone in the world. But you’re a complete fucking psychopath. I don’t suppose you’d consider heading back to the cruiser to get reinforcements?”
“Em, if I can ever replace my DVD of Seven Samurai, I’m going to make you sit down and watch it. You’d understand then,” he said, beginning to regain his cockiness.
“Understand what?”
“It’s not about numbers, it’s about state of mind. Now, are you coming or are you going?” Before she co
uld answer he had already hopped over the wall and was running low to the ground, underneath the kitchen windows and around the back of the house.
Emma looked down towards the sea and for a split second thought about heading back to the dinghy, then she came to her senses. The words echoed in her mind. To survive in this new world you need to adapt. Everything since leaving the house in Leeds had been building to this moment, and she was going to prove herself worthy or die fighting. She leapt over the wall and ran after Mike.
As the pair rounded the corner of the house, still crouching, they saw a young woman with her back to them. She was bent over and picking weeds out of a small flower patch. The two siblings looked at each other, a little bewildered, and headed closer.
“Who are you?” asked Mike, with his shotgun ready in one hand. The woman did not reply, so he asked again, this time in a louder voice. “Oi! Who are you and what are you doing here?” Still no reply. He looked at Emma, who just shrugged. Mike approached the young woman and tapped her on the back. She shot up and turned quickly. On seeing the guns she began screaming, but it wasn’t a normal scream. It was nasal, disjointed, the scream of someone who had never heard another scream. Mike moved the shotgun to his side and put his palm up towards her in a nonthreatening manner to show he meant her no harm.
Before Emma had chance to react, an athletic woman dressed in black sprinted from nowhere and rugby-tackled Mike, taking him completely by surprise and knocking him sideways. The shotgun fell from his hand and he spun in mid-air, landing on his stomach. He was winded but not beaten. He flipped over and grabbed one wrist of the woman who had landed on top of him. With her free hand she punched him hard in the stomach, knocking more wind out of him. She straddled him, getting ready to throw a knockout punch, then paused as recognition swept across her face. Mike thrust his pelvis to knock her off him, then pinned her down firmly, taking both her wrists and locking his thighs against hers so she couldn’t move. Anger flared on his face as he thought about his next move, then it turned to confusion as the woman spoke.
“Mike?”
For a few seconds, everything was silent other than the sound of the sea below. “How do you know my name and why did you attack me?”
“I’m a friend of Sue’s. You, Emma, Sammy and Jake are all she talks about. Your photos are everywhere. And as far as attacking you goes... yeah, sorry about that, when I heard Dora screaming I just reacted. I’m a bit over-protective of my kids.” Mike loosened his grip a little on the woman’s wrists.
“Is Gran alright?” asked Emma nervously.
“She’s fine. She should be back any minute, she’s just in one of the poly tunnels.” Mike looked up at Emma. Excitement and relief flashed on both their faces. “Now, unless this is some kind of Yorkshire mating ritual, would you mind letting go of my hands and helping me up?” she said with a twinkle of a smile.
Mike climbed off her and took one hand; Emma took the other and they pulled their gran’s friend to her feet. She looked about thirty. Her face and arms were brown, suggesting she spent a lot of time outdoors. She had short dark hair and, from the feel of the tackle, was quite muscular. Her smirk erupted into a warm smile as she reached her feet and stood face to face with Emma. “All the time, her faith never faltered. There hasn’t been a day where she hasn’t held the complete conviction that you’d show up. She’s a remarkable woman, Sue.” The girl who had screamed stepped forward to join them. “This is Dora and I’m Sarah,” said the woman, holding out her hand to Emma and then Mike. The girl said hello, but it came out just as vowel sounds.
“Is she deaf?” asked Mike.
“What gave it away, that fact that she didn’t respond when you were shouting at her earlier on, or the fact she just signed hello to both of you?” asked Sarah with the cocky smirk returning to her face. Emma started giggling.
Mike ignored the joke at his expense and continued. “You said kids earlier on. You’ve got more children?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s not like that. I was a teacher at a deaf school when everything started going to hell. Most families came for their children, but some got left behind. Whether their families thought they’d be safer, or maybe they were just too scared to travel the length of the country to get them, who knows. It was a boarding school just west of Inverness. All the other teachers couldn’t get away quick enough and I had a choice of leaving the kids to fend for themselves or trying to get us all to safety. Wasn’t much of a choice really. Anyhow, we headed out this way. We got caught in a storm twenty miles north of here and parked up for the night. Next morning, the minibus was stuck in peat, couldn’t shift it. A couple of hours later this hippie mobile rolls up,” she said, gesturing towards the multi-coloured camper van. “Out comes your gran, tows us out of the bog and insists we come back with her. She got us all set up at the holiday park down in Lonbaig. I come up here with one or two kids every day to give your gran a hand. The rest of them stay down in Lonbaig and help out there.”
“That’s a brave thing you did,” said Emma. “How many are there?”
“Twelve altogether, ranging from eleven to sixteen. Poor kids, just when they thought life was hard enough, all this happened. Anyway, things are going pretty well, all things considered. A big wagon arrived in Lonbaig yesterday with these four guys wanting to set up a trade route in the less badly affected areas. They’d been travelling all around the highlands and said that a lot of the small villages hadn’t been touched that badly by the plague. They said they wanted to find out what each village had and what they needed, and that they would start coming round every few weeks and maybe get some order back to everything. Your gran has got Lonbaig organised, planting and collecting food, she’s like a whirlwind that woman, and—” Sarah broke off at the sound of a plant pot breaking behind her.
Sue stood there, frozen like an ice sculpture. Her mouth was open, the thousand things she wanted to say nowhere near her lips. The tired worry that had engrained itself in her otherwise young-looking face vanished in a heartbeat, washed away in a torrent of joyful tears. Emma dropped the shotgun on the ground and ran towards her Gran like she was still a girl of eight. Mike stood in disbelief. The journey was over. Tears welled in his eyes and he began to tremble. Sarah took hold of his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder, taking his full weight as she guided him to a garden bench. The stress, pain and exhaustion of the last few days had finally caught up with him. He had been weighed down by all of it but had bravely carried on. Now he had got his family here, he could let it all go.
Sarah sat beside him. She removed his arm from her shoulder, took his hand and gently stroked it, recognising the enormous emotional relief pouring out of him as he wept. Tears dripped from his bowed head onto his jeans while he waited for his turn to hug his gran, to be held in her arms. “It’s alright, poppet, you made it, you’re here now,” said Sarah, sounding more like his gran than a thirty-year-old stranger.
Eventually Emma and Sue broke their embrace and went across to join Mike and Sarah on the bench. Sue knelt down in front of him, threw her arms around him and held on until she could sense the tears had stopped. Minutes passed and still not a single word had been exchanged between the three family members. Finally, Sue dried her eyes, took a second to look around the garden and swallowed nervously. “Where are the munchkins?”
“Don’t worry, they’re safe. We picked up some people along the way, they’re with them on a boat out in the bay,” said Emma, realising Mike was still too fragile to talk.
“Please bring them. I can’t wait to see them again.”
Mike began to stand but Emma pushed him back down. “I can go get them, it’s no biggie,” she said confidently.
“I’ll go with you,” said Sarah, signing something to the girl and getting a nod in response.
Emma picked up her shotgun and headed back out of the garden, leaving Mike and Sue holding each other tightly on the bench. Sarah followed her. Dora, not knowing what else to do, began weeding again.
&nbs
p; “Your brother’s a bit more emotional than I envisioned,” said Sarah as she caught up with Emma.
“After what he’s been through, it’s a miracle he’s here at all,” replied Emma defensively.
“You don’t seem as badly affected, but you’ve been through the same,” continued Sarah.
Emma stopped abruptly in her tracks, took hold of Sarah’s forearm and turned her around to face her. “Listen, Sarah, you seem nice, my gran is a good judge of character, so you’re probably really nice, but you don’t have a clue about what’s going on out there. My brother has done some of the most unimaginable things. He has saved my life and the rest of the people in my group a dozen times over by risking his own, usually while everybody else, including me, was just watching on, terrified. If anybody deserves a bit of a meltdown right now, it’s him, and I can guarantee that everyone you’re about to meet will think the same.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” she said, holding her hands up defensively. “I didn’t mean to offend you or him. I was just a little bit taken aback, that’s all. From what Sue said I didn’t picture him getting so upset.”
The anger left Emma’s face. “Look, I’m sorry, but when you’ve heard what we’ve been through you might realise why I’m so touchy. He’s got us here, Sarah,” she said, surveying the scenic tranquillity. “A few days ago I was trapped in a house surrounded by monsters wanting nothing more than to tear me to pieces. I was a split second away from putting a bullet through my head and then he came from out of nowhere. He beat a path through a hellish battlefield straight to me. There wasn’t a second’s thought for his own safety, only mine. He saved me. He saved all of us. And as drained and broken as he is this minute, I know that if he had to, he would do it all again. That’s who he is, Sarah. That’s my brother.”
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