After It Happened (Book 7): Andorra [The Leah Chronicles]

by Ford, Devon C.

  The Leah Chronicles

  An After it Happened Story

  Andorra

  Devon C Ford

  Copyright © Devon C Ford 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No affiliation is implied or intended to any organisation or recognisable body mentioned within.

  Published by Vulpine Press in the United Kingdom in 2018

  Cover by Claire Wood

  ISBN: 978-1-912701-25-4

  www.vulpine-press.com

  Dedicated to single malt whisky; without you, I wouldn’t have come up with half of this stuff…

  Author’s Note

  If you’re reading this, then you probably made a strange noise when you first heard I was revisiting the After It Happened series. One person even admitted to being so excited that he punched a co-worker in the head, so I apologise to that poor, unintentional victim.

  I have no regrets about the epilogue of Rebellion, at all, but I did leave two generations of time between where the exploits of [INSERT FAVOURITE CHARACTER(S)] left off and the epilogue ended.

  It’s a terrible thing for an author to do, to complain about nagging fans, but as I was working on the other projects I always have on the go I found my attention slipping out of the 1980s zombie world my mind was inhabiting and thinking more and more about what Dan and Leah had been up to since I abandoned them to their future after the wild fan theories tugged at my insomnia. I relented one Sunday afternoon and started to jot down some ideas about how Leah et al. would progress their lives, and before I came up for air I had written a few thousand words.

  When I first ended the series I promised myself that I couldn’t put them through any more, as I had punished them enough in their plight for survival and freedom and prosperity.

  Well, it’s been long enough.

  When I first gave the draft of this story, of which there will be more, to a trusted team of beta readers they commented that they felt themselves returning to the comfort of old friends and were immediately able to dive headlong back into their universe as though they had never left. Be it another terrible Dad joke from Neil, a classic Ash moment, the tense anticipation of knowing that Dan’s blood is up or the kick-ass Leah action, I hope you enjoy a dip of the toe back into the After world and grow to love the new characters emerging as you did the original members of Dan’s unhappy campers.

  DCF

  Epilogue From Rebellion

  Stretching her aching back, the old woman rose from her chair and picked up the battered carbine she had carried for years. It was so worn in places that the dappled camouflage pattern she knew every inch of was rubbed down to the smooth metal. Her weapon possessed the last of the working parts for that model, and was as close to its end as she was. She hadn’t fired it in nearly ten years, and even then it was to drive away a curious predator, but couldn’t quite give up on it. She said she would be buried with it and didn’t want it far from her reach; like a Viking warrior wanting to go to Valhalla with her hand gripping a sword’s hilt.

  Walking slowly, she took the stone steps one at a time until she stepped out onto the exposed walkways and turned to face the bay as her stiff-limbed and tired companion flanked her without instruction. The loyal mongrel hadn’t left her side in over a decade; a proud warrior heritage of its great ancestry still present despite the dog’s advanced age.

  The sinking sun had dropped behind the far cliff and silhouetted the watch tower beautifully, bathing Sanctuary in a rich, golden, fiery glow.

  She never got used to how powerful a sunset was. How it stirred feelings in her which reminded her very soul that she was alive.

  She had grown sentimental in her old age; prone to reliving stories to an audience who had heard them before but listened out of reverence, respect and entertainment. The good old days, she called them, even though there was little that happened during those days which was good. She was permanently wearing her rose-tinted glasses, as was her right having survived for so long through everything the world had thrown at her.

  Age did nothing to dull her senses, however, and soft footsteps betrayed the approach of two people. She knew who they were before they got to her, and she was also certain that they were hoping to startle her with their sudden appearance.

  Her two nephews, born two years apart and startlingly different in their looks; one tall and broad with a mess of thick, dark hair whilst the other was a head shorter, blonde and smaller in stature with big eyes which seemed to stare straight into a person’s soul. Both had the undeniable looks of their grandparents but took more of their personalities from their adoptive aunt.

  Between them they held the stewardship of the town now, as she had taken a step back many summers before after twenty years of training them as best she could. Both were effective soldiers, but more than that they were leaders; just like their grandparents. Their joint reign was a return to the times when they at Sanctuary were a warrior clan; a force to be reckoned with.

  Before she acknowledged them, something in her subconscious made her turn to the distant watch tower where her parents were buried side by side. She often joked they were buried so close to each other that they could carry on their loving bickering into eternity.

  She still missed them, and the pain of their passing lessened only a little each day. She knew they were still watching over their home, buried close to their son who had fallen ill and died not long after they had passed.

  She liked to believe that they were still keeping everyone down where she was safe as they had always done, at whatever cost.

  “You’ll have to be better than that to get the drop on me, boys,” she croaked with a smile to herself.

  “Still got it, Auntie Leah,” said the taller one, leaning in to give her a rough kiss on her cheek which still bore the scar from the battle for Sanctuary.

  “I’ve forgotten more than you know, sunshine,” she said with a grin, goading them both into a good-natured argument for her amusement.

  “Always,” said the shorter one, deftly and diplomatically avoiding the bickering she tried to antagonise as he bent to scratch under the chin of the German shepherd cross who looked up at him expectantly. Producing a scrap of dried meat, he rewarded Ash’s descendant as she knew he would.

  “All quiet,” said Jack before the woman cut him off.

  “You don’t need to tell me,” she said. “I’m retired.”

  Her nephews exchanged a look, which she somehow detected even though she still gazed out over the ramparts.

  “And don’t roll your eyes at me,” she said before turning to face them. She knew they didn’t want to report anything to her; they wanted advice on something whist they could still call on her experience.

  “What can an old woman do for you?” she enquired with sweet sarcasm.

  “Nothing,” said Peter, the shadow of the old compound bow jutting out above his shoulder, “we just wanted to see how you were.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “in fact I was just about to go and visit my granddaughter.”

  Jack smiled back at her before saying, “We’ll walk with you, Auntie Leah.”

  ~

  A little over a week l
ater, over a hundred men and women of all ages made the long and arduous journey on foot to the top of the cliff overlooking their beautiful home.

  They lowered her shrouded body into the rectangular hole as her daughter knelt in the dirt to reverently lay the battered and ancient gun on her chest. Her body was almost covered by the time everyone had filed past and sprinkled a handful of dirt over her, leaving her nephews little work to do in replacing the remainder of the excavated soil. Her granddaughter was the last to stand over her with her uncles; fourteen years old and strong, with a fierce sense of pride in her heritage, she was the very image of the woman they laid to rest. In reverent flattery of her grandmother, she carried with her an old rifle everywhere she went. The short barrel with its angular foregrip. The dual sight on the top rail. It had belonged, originally, to a man now immortalised in the legend of her home. A man she had never met but felt like she knew nonetheless.

  Carefully arranging the stone slab to align with the others, they gently patted down the earth to tuck her in tight, next to Dan.

  She was in fine company on that ridge. The vanguard of warriors who fought their whole lives to protect the group, never once giving up or putting their own needs ahead of others. Those responsible for the safety they now enjoyed.

  She lay beside her Uncle Neil. Mitch beside him.

  The best friend of her childhood, Ash.

  She lay beside her younger brother, taken too soon.

  She lay behind the woman who had become her mother, and a mother to so many others.

  Andorra

  Prologue

  “Sit down, boys,” said the woman as she groaned, lowering herself to the high-backed chair in the corner of the room, “do you want to hear a story of your grandfather?”

  The two young boys, one larger and dark-haired who was eerily quiet and the other, younger and fair-haired with a permanent buoyancy to his attitude, sat on the rug beside the ancient black and grey dog. It raised its large head, the fur about its muzzle long turned white, surveyed the arrival of the boys and flopped back down to ignore their presence; he was damned if he was giving up a prime spot on the rug in front of the fire.

  “So what do you want to hear?” she asked, brushing her greying hair out of her face and revealing a scarred cheek from an injury earned long before her nephews were born. “The defence of Sanctuary? The tale of how I got this?” she asked, pointing at the faded stripe across her cheek.

  The boys exchanged a look; the fair one pulling a face and the dark one glowering at him before shaking his head at the woman.

  “Or how about the story of how we crossed the ocean, riding on Hope?”

  “Uh-uh,” said the younger one petulantly, giggling as his brother swiped at him because he had predicted it and dodged clear.

  “Maybe the terrifying time that your auntie fought a pack of wild dogs and barely escaped with her life?” she said in a theatrically menacing tone, making the younger one chuckle and recoil in mock terror.

  “How about the time we rescued the slaves from the evil giant?” she tried.

  “You told us that one last week,” the older boy, Jack, said quietly. Although only six years old, he had a depth and authority to his voice which lent him an oddly brooding air.

  “Did I?” she asked, her face registering annoyance and feigned shock. “My old memory isn’t what it used to be…”

  “You’re not old,” the younger one, Peter, said with a wide smile and a laugh.

  “I am!” she snapped back indignantly. “I’m forty years old. Forty! Me!”

  Peter laughed with her, and even the seemingly sullen Jack cracked a smile which she had to admit that she hadn’t seen much of since their father passed away less than half a year before. Their mother, stricken with the grief and stress of her partner’s painful illness, had quietly taken her own life along with him, and both were now buried high on the cliffs to overlook the walled town below. Beside them were their parents, her parents, and a dozen more besides, but she didn’t like to consider that too much in company, especially company so young, and preferred to pay her respects in private with a glass of the fierce liquor they brewed there as she stared up at the watchtower from her ramparts.

  And they were her ramparts, as she had been leading the town and its inhabitants in the years since her father’s passing. That day still stung her memory, threatening a tear which never seemed to run dry when thinking of the grumpy man she owed her entire life to, but her lapse into recall was burst by the door opening.

  A slim, young woman poked her head around the door and smiled at the scene. The dog, the first descendant of the best friend a young girl could ever have wished for, disturbed once more by the arrival of the troublesome humans interfering with his warm nap, looked up again and grumbled loudly.

  “Pipe down, Ares,” the woman in the chair said, although not unkindly, earning an exaggerated sigh from the dog as its chest rose and fell.

  “It’s time for their bath, Maman,” she said in English with a subtle French accent, prompting a complaining noise from Peter and a sullen glance from Jack.

  “I was just telling them a story, won’t be too long, chérie,” she replied, seeing her daughter smile and duck back out of the room to leave them to their history lessons. The woman in the chair let her own smile linger a moment on the closing door, her love for her daughter radiating warmth.

  “What about the one about the highwaymen?” Jack asked her hopefully.

  “Which ones?” she replied with a smirk. “There have been so many over the years I can’t really remember them all…”

  Responding to the goad like a fish taking a lure, Jack sat up on his knees and spoke faster than usual.

  “The one where you and grandpapa had to fight in the dark through the long tunnel. When Ash and Nemesis hunted the bad men and you saved the people from the thing…” He trailed off, his excitement having flowed uncharacteristically before he composed himself once more.

  “Oh, those highwaymen,” she replied, “you don’t want to hear that old tale, do you?”

  “Oui, please, Auntie Leah,” Peter blurted out, as he often did mixing the two common languages of their town.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, “settle down and I’ll tell you. It started at the end of the summer when I was nearly eighteen…”

  Life in Peacetime

  “Keep up, old man,” I said, trying to keep the breathlessness from my voice. A huff of a grunt from behind me, closer than I expected, told me that Dan wasn’t as old and unfit as I thought. I dug deep, pushing myself harder to try and extend a lead over him as we raced up and down the intricate stone stairways of the central keep. We’d abandoned our usual practice of exercising wearing our heavy equipment because the summer had been long and very hot. That heat alone sapped the oxygen from the air and made exercise harder, but we had both felt the spread of comfort in the almost four years since we had last been forced to fight for our survival.

  Ash and my own dog, cursed to wear a thick fur coat all year round, had been left out of our daily exercise regime which especially annoyed Ash at first, but as the sun grew hot shortly after sunrise he had been content to lounge about in the shade being annoyed by the other dogs in the town as though he was some kind of lazy monarch or esteemed village elder. Some of those other dogs were his own descendants, and I had adopted the short-coated bitch which shared his temperament and ability but her mother’s looks. I had called her Nemesis, or Nem for short, as Dan insisted that a working dog should always have a single-syllable name to shout at them when time was of the essence.

  Even Nem, with her thinner, lighter coat and far superior youth, was banned from our run due to the oppressive heat.

  Bursting out of the confines of the stairwell and turning a hard right onto the partly covered walkways leading towards the main gate, I felt more than heard Dan catching up with me. His longer legs and superior strength were serving him better in the open, when my smaller size made the stairwells easier. For
ced to slow to take the ninety-degree left to reach the gate, my brain snapshotted the repaired parapet and gates showing different coloured stones and the marks where the explosion had scorched a huge patch of the ancient construction. We accelerated off as one, but he had somehow managed to out-brake me and get the inside line like a racing car driver.

  “No fair!” I gasped, dropping my body low and accelerating like a sprinter off the line to try and beat him on the last fifty paces. I didn’t look at him, but I knew he would have his head down and be willing his tired, old legs to drive him forward.

  Both slowing and standing upright as we crossed our imaginary finish line neck and neck, our breath came in ragged, panting gasps against the heat and the exertion.

  “Draw,” I said, bending down with both hands on my knees.

  “Bollocks,” Dan growled through a pained smile, “I had you at the end!”

  “Did you… really?” I said, breathing in hard and forcing my outward breath to be slower as I puffed my cheeks.

  “Not sure,” he answered in a strained voice, standing tall and grimacing with his eyes closed as he placed his interlocked hands behind his head.

  “Hang on,” called a voice laced with intended comedy from the walkway behind us. I hadn’t seen him, but Neil must have come out of the nearer stairwell as we passed and witnessed our sprint finish. He placed a finger to his ear, eyes vacant as though he was listening to some unheard transmission, then stood straight and drew the outline of a box with his two fingers starting at the top centre. He put his finger back to his ear, playing the part well as he mumbled and nodded, pretending to listen to the report of the video playback from the imaginary fourth official.

  “Leah… wins!” he announced, in some echo of an old video game that was probably older than me.