by S. G Mark
“I am, if you’ll let me have my say,” Kyle said, “Last September we heard about an attack the government was planning on its own people. It was the first of its kind and we were worried what this might mean for the future of the country if the plans were carried out. At first we didn’t know why they would strike out like this - we were only just beginning to understand the true nature of who they were. All we knew was that they needed to be stopped and that we only had one shot at it.
“I had the best aim of everyone, the most trained also. There wasn’t really a choice as to who would be selected. When he we realised the attack was going to happen in Edinburgh, we all left our families behind. We knew the possible backlash that would happen. On the afternoon of the attack I travelled through from Glasgow. I set up by the old Bank of Scotland building on The Mound. The place has been closed for years and is no longer guarded. I waited and waited. I saw them set up the marquee, saw the first of the crowds gather with their placards. For twenty minutes I looked continuously down my scope while another kept watch. I can’t begin to describe the panic and fear I felt when I saw the man running into the gardens. I knew I might have seconds to fire - if I was lucky. One breath - the most important breath I’ve ever taken, Jack. One steady breath and I pulled the trigger and he was dead. I felt sick when I saw the second one - I had no time. No one expected there to be two! He was too quick for me - by the time I could steady my aim he had already pulled the trigger.”
“That was the night Alex chased after you,” Jack said.
“Yes,” Kyle confirmed, “From what he told us, he tried to find us all night, but we were long gone.”
“What happened when he did eventually find you?”
“We didn’t trust him,” Kyle said bluntly, “It was too convenient to have a stranger so eagerly want to join us. We tested him - and he passed every single time. But listen, you wanted to know what we have done. That night we saved countless lives - not them all, but more than if we had not been there at all.”
“What else?”
“When the CRU was brought in, we rescued people who were going to be arrested. Many of them had just defaulted on a few debts, maybe even bought a few Rations on the Blackmarket. They needed help - they didn’t deserve to be jailed. We helped them escape - and in return some of them joined us, or gave us information that would aid our cause.”
“So you’ve never made any mistakes - never killed anyone innocent?” Jack asked, with an edge of sarcasm to his tone.
“Oh no,” Kyle said, “We have. We have made a great number of mistakes. Whilst we do not target civilians, we cannot help if they get in our way.”
“When? When did they get in your way?”
“The London Eye. That was us, I am not proud to admit. We needed to hit them back hard for what they did to our leader. The attraction was booked out for a political event. It could not have been more perfect. We planted the device days in advance - we had no way of knowing most of the event had been cancelled. But we got Hugh Stewart, and whilst it doesn’t weigh up to the deaths we caused that day, it made the politicians realise that they were not untouchable.”
“And that was worth it for you?”
“I’m not saying it was, Jack. But it happened - if we didn’t try to find the good that came from it, then we would be struck with grief and immobile from guilt every day of our lives. What good could ever come from that?”
Jack could not believe what he was hearing. A terrorist trying to justify his actions? He nearly pitied Kyle for being so naive.
Seemingly having finished what he needed to say, Kyle leaned back in the grass. A shard of sunlight pierced through the sky and shone directly onto them. Birds sung melodies in a tree nearby.
“They took Miriam,” Kyle said, “We left home to join The Resistance in September. When I moved to Edinburgh, she stayed in Glasgow until the December. Then she was called down to Bristol - to help set up for an attack in Gloucester a few months later. It was Alex himself that told me. Someone must’ve told the CRU about the safe house. After everyone was taken, they burned the place.”
“Is she okay?” Jack asked, remembering what it was like when he had been arrested.
Kyle pointed over at a purple tulip, “That’s hers right there.”
“Christ, I’m sorry Kyle,” Jack felt his barriers drop. He knew how much Miriam meant to Kyle.
“I think the hardest thing is I don’t know - I don’t actually know what happened to her. She went into the system and that was it. Dead, alive - I won’t know until this whole fucking thing is over. But I planted her favourite flower, just in case.”
Empathy swept over Jack. He had been here before. Scar had disappeared into the system in just the same way.
“A friend of mine -”
“I know,” Kyle interrupted, “Alex told me. We planted one for her too.”
Tears welled up in Jack’s eyes when they met the yellow daffodil smiling bravely up at the sky.
“Without her, you would have had one here too.”
His heart jolted at the realisation. If it had not been for Scar’s fake confession, then Jack would have been charged with terrorism. Would he have turned into just another faceless name lost in the system as well? What happened to them all when they were sent to jail? Both Scar and Simon had been taken away in the same way - rushed trials and hurried off to jail. Should they both now be daffodils in a field, or was there some hope left?
“You’re starting to believe, aren’t you?” Kyle asked. “I can see it in your eyes. We share the same pain.”
Jack looked away, ashamed to admit he shared anything with a terrorist.
Hearing footsteps squelching in the mud behind them, they both turned to see Aiden haphazardly jogging up to them.
“It’s my Dad, he says he wants to speak with you, Kyle.”
Kyle nodded before turning to Jack, “I’m going to leave you here. You are not to go further than that fence or you will be shot. I mean it.”
Kyle stood up and walked back with Aiden to the farmhouse.
The temptation to flee was enormous, but Jack did not doubt Kyle’s threat. Savouring the fresh air, Jack closed his eyes and imagined he was in the back garden of Relugas Road. He was sitting on the bench - the warm ray of sunshine that leaked from the clouds painted a bright summer’s day in his mind. Eliza was waving at him from her bedroom window. He beamed at her and waved her to come down.
When she came over the long, unkempt grass, she leapt into his open arms. In his daydream he thought he could smell her perfume; feel her soft skin and see her twinkling grey eyes. But it was all make-believe; all imagination.
He opened his eyes and they magnetically fell towards the bright daffodil.
“I’m sorry Scar,” he said, “I’m sorry I just signed the release form. I’m sorry I let you lie for me. I should never have drawn you into this mess.”
For a few moments he was silent, foolishly hoping to hear an answer that would still his thumping heart. But he heard none. Scar was gone. The flower bed spread in either direction from him. No two flowers of the same kind were planted together and as such the bed looked like a patchwork of colour inside a poignant ribbon. One flower for every death, every missing loved one. There were hundreds of them. A hundred different flowers for a hundred different lives.
“What do I do, Scar?” Jack asked the wordless plant, “Do I trust them? I don’t know who to trust anymore. Maybe I have no trust left to give.”
Yards away the fence teased him. It would be the easy route out - to make no choice, to abandon all hope and just walk until he dropped to the ground. Maybe it would hurt, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe he had stopped caring. Too much had happened in his life already; perhaps it was time to surrender? Something, though he could not ascertain or describe what, was keeping him rooted to the damp grassy spot.
Kyle returned a few minutes later.
“Earlier,” Jack spoke first, “Why were we hiding?”
Kyle k
nelt down beside him again, offering him a single slice of bread and butter.
“Lunch,” Kyle said, “Of sorts, at least.”
“Thanks,” Jack said, tearing off a bite.
Kyle lay on his back, basking in the single ray of sunshine.
“Every month they come - the CFA. It’s not specifically this farm, they do the rounds in the general area.”
“What do they do?”
“Demand money, mostly.”
“I don’t understand?”
Kyle smirked, “City boy, of course. While you lot in the concrete jungle have been suffering Rations and unemployment, something else has been going on here. Something equally sinister.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked, finding himself drawn into the story.
“About two years ago the Central Farming Authority was formed. At first it seemed harmless enough, but then it started trying to force smaller farms to join larger Collectives. Those that refused were laden with heavy, unreasonable fines. This farm is one of them. Every month they come around and ask for payment.”
“Collectives?”
“Merging all the nearby farms into one. Sounds all a bit communistic and you’d be forgiven for thinking that was the intention. But there’s something else going on. We’ve been investigating for about a year - ever since this farm refused to join. Things aren’t normal in those collectives. No one who has joined is allowed out. You don’t just leave a Collective.”
Jack felt the conversation veering onto conspiracy theories again and remained silent. His mind was not made up. He was still on the proverbial fence which, conveniently, lay but a few yards away.
Overhead a cloud passed over, smothering the solitary sunbeam. The warm air chilled and Jack was reminded once more that they were out in the wilderness. He finished the remnants of his slice of bread; hunger not satiated, but quelled for the time being. He briefly wondered what would happen next. There seemed no structure to the rest of the day - would Kyle continue to talk him through The Resistance propaganda, or would he be allowed a break and a chance to think?
“What would happen if I climbed over that fence?” Jack asked idly.
“Look to your left,” Kyle said, briefly allowing Jack to tilt his head, “There’s a guardsman embedded in that wall. To your right, there’s another. Both keep watch over these fields for any unauthorised people. Alex ordered them to shoot you on site if you tried to escape.”
“Why doesn’t he just kill me himself? It’d solve all his problems.”
“I’ve not known Alex for as long as you, but my guess is he needs you for something. Otherwise he would not have taken you back here.”
“You don’t know what that is, do you?”
“I have my thoughts, but I don’t think I should be the person to speculate on what Alex wants or needs. Come,” he said, rising to his feet, “The rain is coming, and we best be inside when it does.”
As they walked back to the farmhouse, Jack glanced behind him and caught a glimpse of the daffodil blustering in the wind. A sheet of rain cascaded over the far end of the valley.
“What day is it?” Jack asked.
“August the twelfth, why?”
“Five days ago I turned twenty-seven. I didn’t even notice.”
“Well Happy Birthday, mate,” Kyle said jovially, in a tone that defied all that they had just discussed.
Chapter Three
The grey walls chanted a great fear. A fear of what might happen; a fear of what had; a fear of what was happening. It was a prism of guilt and a wreath of despair; a twisted cycle that would never end. A small square patch of mud between the walls served as the only space in which they could act out the last days of their lives. It was their tomb as well as their doom.
Darkness infested every corner of the space around him. The air was tinted with the sickly sweet smell of death; an all-too familiar aroma. Screams could be heard from outside; like clockwork, counting down the seconds until it would be his turn in the spotlight. Tick tock, scream, shout and he prayed the waiting would eventually end. Every moment he craved it. It was all he had left. Until the cue came, he would be confined to the four shit-stained walls he named his hell; but which the guards called his cell.
Weeks of isolation. Nothing but the torturous screams to keep him company; nothing but the thoughts in his head to keep him occupied. His skin hung limply from his body; one meal every two days, and by now he knew it was not to supposed to keep him alive, but to prolong his slow death. It was inevitable. It had always been inevitable.
He sank back against the corner wall that served as his pillow. Though he knew otherwise, he convinced himself he heard a crow caw, nestled on a leafless branch. He liked to remember nature the most. Rarely did he ever recall the noise of busy roads, of revving cars and scurrying pedestrians, of speeding ambulances and screeching fire engines. It was nice to hear a barn owl or fox in the imaginary night. They were a comfort to him, a memento of a kinder world. Sometimes he could tune out the shrieks of pain from the others and he could pretend that he was in a grassy meadow in the middle of a forest. The stars were twinkling overhead, and he could even see the edge of The Milky Way. Somewhere across the meadow, a deer would gallop, startled by a snapping twig. The owl would hoot and far off he could hear a frog croak. After sometime he would pretend that the wind blew gently - a late summer breeze, rekindling a hopeful nostalgia, his favourite. Once, he managed to remain in the woodland - unbroken by the guards yelling - until morning came. His mind had made it the most beautiful dawn he had ever seen. And the birds that swooped across the sky! He would be lucky if he were to ever imagine that again. Each day removed another piece of him; another memory stolen; another slice of hope lost.
Presently, he brushed his fingertips over the engraving in the wall he had made months ago, scratched out of the concrete by his own fingernails. It read two words: silver gold. He stroked it delicately, desperate for it never to rub away. The two words were his only true companions. They would be with him right until the end, whenever it came parading in.
From the other side of the black, ominous door he heard fresh yells. Another victim - he had not heard that scream before. Fresh meat, he was almost jealous. It had been more than three weeks since he had seen another human. His food was thrown through a tiny flap in the door but never had he glimpsed the hand from whence it came. No flash of flesh; no glint of an eye or even so much as a shadow of another person. Nothing: except for when he was lead upstairs. Crying and screaming, he’d be dragged from his cell, taken upstairs and thrown to the floor like he was already a corpse. There would be blood on the floor - remnants from his predecessor. They would have already prepared the bench for him - lining it with new nails and boiling the water once more. They didn’t do it for answers: they did it for sick, depraved fun. Pulling him on to the bench, he would be locked into position - usually by a nail digging into his shoulder, feet or abdomen. Never enough to kill him; just enough to cause searing pain. Sufficient to make him realise he was still alive before they poured the water over his now-naked genitals. Again and again they would repeat this; until they grew tired and took a hammer to his bones. Fingers, toes, ankles: he was crippled beyond what pain could describe. Then they would return him to his cell, a mere shadow of a shadow of a man, and there they would leave him, alone: a little more broken than the last and craving the attention a little more each time.
Memories were all that kept him anchored to life. He knew he wouldn’t have lasted long if it were not for the smiles of his children, or the faint echo of his wife’s last kiss. Whether they delayed his surrender, he could not care. Every moment he could spend remembering was worth still breathing for. Flashes of his old life would intersperse his visions occasionally. Pictures of grand white staircases; of black doors and men in black suits watching him in awe. They always knew what to say, what to make him do next and where they wanted him to go. For a few years he had everything he wanted; anything he demanded was his, anythin
g he hated was gone. It was complete control, or so he thought. The Black Voice whispered ever in the background; the Advisor who asked for nothing but loyalty.
The man’s hateful voice trembled in his eardrum. Even in this hell he could not escape him. There was no escape. He was the four walls that caged him; he was the steel door that locked him in; he was the bed of nails, the searing hot water, the sneer of the torturer and the long, arduous wait in between.
Frightened by what he may be lurking in the darkness, he clamped his hands to his ears, closing his eyes tightly so not a spear of light broke through.
“Get away!” he yelled, “I know you’re here!”
Curling up into a ball, he backed further against the wall, primed for the strike.
“Loyalty,” the man whispered as if a gust of wind.
“Get away!” he shouted back, kicking out against the air.
“That’s your fourth one tonight,” the man cackled from the other side of the cell.
“You can’t hurt me here! You can’t!”
“You seek solace in that more than you care to admit,” the man mocked from directly above.
Rolling across the cell to escape the man’s clutches, he screamed, “You do not have to live by my choices! You are a lesser man with big ideas!”
“You are mine now!” the man whispered, but the voice seemed to radiate from the walls themselves.
“You are nothing without me!” he screamed back.
“I told you this would happen,” the man said, “I promised you gold and it went to your head! You thought you had power, over me?”
“You can’t touch me! You can’t hurt me! Not here! Not when I have nothing left to feel!” he rose to his feet, but his legs could not bear his own body weight and he staggered back against the wall.
“I can hurt your wife. I can hurt your little boys,” the man cackled, “I can make them cry with grief, weep with… excruciating pain. I can tear them apart, and you know I will. You know I won’t stop to get what I want.”