by S. G Mark
Not feeling at all comforted by the knowledge he had received, Jack grabbed a pair of boots in his size and slipped them on.
When everyone was done, Emma passed them all rain jackets from another set of coat hangers.
“Why not those?” Jack pointed at the vests.
“Do you normally wear them when you go hillwalking?” Emma mocked.
“No, but protection?”
“We can’t risk going up there as an army,” Emma said.
Everyone turned to stare at Jack as he awkwardly adorned his jacket. It was a dark navy, which he gathered would aide in their camouflage, but he could not help feeling like tourist. The rest of them resembled a bunch of sightseers too. His confidence levels were low. Was this all that The Resistance had to offer?
“What if one of us is shot?” he asked.
Emma threw him a look, threatening him telepathically to shut up.
“Isn’t that a distinct possibility?” Jack was only trying to seek honest answers. If there was any chance that he could be injured, then he wanted protection.
Ignoring his questions, Emma addressed the group, “Right. Kyle is waiting by the tunnel entrance. When you’re ready, head towards it but don’t go any further until Kyle orders you to.”
Lance, narrowing his eyes at Jack as he passed, took point and lead the group from the armoury and back into the hallway. Jack had never heard the tunnel being mentioned before. As each person filed passed, Jack remained where he was, awkwardly fastening his zip up and feeling distinctly out of place. Emma stopped as she approached him.
“What are you playing at?” she asked.
“I don’t understand?”
“What do you want from this, Jack?”
He remained silent, not wanting to risk another lie.
“Maybe you might find it if you stop seeing us through your default media lens. You’re too busy trying to confirm how bad we are, and not seeing all the good we do.”
Jack stammered a reply, but it withered away into hesitation.
“You’re here. You’re coming with us. It’s a big step, but it’s the right thing to do. C’mon, let’s join the others.”
Emma led the way into the corridor and followed the shadow of the last group member that slunk round the corner. Apprehensively, Jack followed her, a plan gestating in his mind. As they passed the kitchen, Jack looked in and saw the cooking point cooling on the counter, abandoned. His stomach grumbled passively.
In the middle of the corridor, Emma stopped and Jack nearly fell into her.
“What are you doing?”
But his question was answered by the square hole in the floor, through which he saw a hand disappear into. In the middle of the floor, was a small hatchway. A ladder led down into the black depths. Quite how he had not noticed it before, he did not know. From here he could see his dormitory - his very bed in fact. His bed, he reviewed his own thoughts scrutinously.
“Jump down and follow the others. I’ll lock up,” Emma said.
Clambering around her, he lowered himself down into the hole. As Emma’s face shrunk further into the distance, Jack began to worry how deep the hole might be. He must have descended at least twenty metres, but he was hopeless at judging distances.
Above him he heard a screech and saw Emma’s figure leap down on to the ladder as the hatch above her closed, the last of the light dwindling.
“Emma!” he yelled, “How far do-”
His feet jammed into something solid, something organic. Earth beneath his feet.
A hand grabbed his side to stop him from falling over. He could not see its owner's face, but it was warm to the touch.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Joey,” the woman’s voice filtered through the darkness, “My name’s Joey.”
Her Dorset accent was pleasantly amusing.
“Take my hand,” she said, “The first time down here is really confusing. I panicked a bit - hate the dark.”
Jack latched on to her and she steered him through the black. Up ahead he could hear the shuffling of feet - they were not far behind the others. A noise behind told him that Emma had leapt down the rest of the ladder rungs to the ground.
“You’re Jack, right?” Joey asked. “I’ve seen you around.”
Embarrassingly, Jack could not even put a face to the girl he was holding hands with. He might have seen her face a hundred times in the past month.
“It’s okay, I’m not much of a talker either,” she said sweetly, “We’re almost here though.”
As they approached the end, Jack felt the presence of the others. Coughs and splutters, gentle breathing, stretching of muscles and cracking joints. No one was speaking to each other.
They waited until Emma arrived, which was shortly after Jack remembered that he had a torch. Taking it from his pocket and flicking it on he was met by a wall of response.
With the brick tunnel walls illuminated, he caught a glimpse of everyone cowered low on the ground before he was ordered to shut it off.
“I’m sorry!” he whispered, “I didn’t realise.”
“The door is made from cheap timber slats - any light will just fly right through it. We can’t be advertising the entrance!” Kyle said, sharply.
At that point Emma crouched down beside him and squeezed his shoulder.
“He’s in Leader mode. Right now, he isn’t your friend,” she advised him, “He’s your boss.”
Before Jack could ask what that meant, Kyle took to the forum.
“You are to split into pairs. You are looking for one man - we don’t have any info on whether he is ours, or theirs or even an innocent bystander. Either way, we need to track him down and take him back here. If there is any chance that he has seen the farmhouse or the base, then he needs to be eliminated, got it?”
Jack gulped. Did that mean what he thought it meant?
“If stopped, you are to claim you are lost hillwalkers looking for the main road. In the event that this happens, you are to follow any instructions given to you to return to the public and from there we can make contact. If you cannot return here unnoticed, then you do not return here. You do not even attempt it. Got it?”
The group grumbled an affirmative.
“Right, good. Split into pairs and await my instructions.”
At that moment, Joey leant over to him, “Sorry, I’ve got to go with Peter. It was nice meeting you.”
It was odd. Jack felt like he was revisiting school P.E lessons.
“We’ll go together,” Emma said to him.
A few moments later and Kyle addressed them all again. His tone of voice was significantly different to the friend he knew. His accent was levelled out and his tongue seemed sharper, more direct than what Jack was used to. Their trivial conversations over the years paled into oblivion as to how magnanimous Kyle was now.
“Right, every ten minutes I’m going to let a pair of you out. You are to walk in separate directions. Lance and Amy, you are to walk at your nine o’clock. Tom and Vinny, you are to go at your eleven o’clock, etcetera. If you come across each other, then you walk past and smile as if you are strangers. Only approach each other if you’ve found the person. We don’t know who could be listening! Got it? Right, Lance and Amy. Go.”
Jack heard the creaking of a door hinge and the shuffling of feet and waterproofs. Seconds later they heard the sound of boots crunching through heather. They were out in the open. The rest of the group shuffled forward. Jack’s heartbeat raced, thirty more minutes by his reckoning.
The wait in the tunnel was long and arduous. Few spoke and when they did it was only through short whispers, all too frightened to create any sound louder than the night’s gentle breeze. Kyle was sunken into the corner of the tunnel, preparing each pair to leave and keeping a watchful eye outside. Jack, at the back of the line, could hardly see further than a few feet beyond the edge of the tunnel. He had no way of knowing what kind of terrain he may be facing. Still, it mattered little as he was going t
o follow through with his plan regardless.
Hands shaking, not through cold but nerves, Jack keenly watched as every pair preceding him ventured out into the dusk. The moment for him would soon come upon him and he would be free, or at least would have the opportunity to be.
Emma was too close for comfort. With her caring hand resting on his knee, he feared she might be able to read his body language, sense what he was contemplating and his plan would be betrayed by his own central nervous system. However, this was not his first experience with lying - he was now adept. If it were not for his father arriving when he did, the lie about who he was would have continued. He knew he was able to bury Steven Lennox again, it was only a matter of time. No one had suspected his unemployment, no one had been alarmed that he had stopped giving Maggie his Rations. Anything he said, they believed. He only need to keep lying for a few more hours.
The gun in Kyle’s hand twinkled in the stray moonlight. Jack gulped. Historically, revealing his lies would have destroyed his life: the lies he was telling with every inch of his body today may just end it.
There was no way of knowing what type of people they were. The Resistance: playing the victim, playing the hero - what did they really do to make ends meet? What did they really do to traitors, to the fabled Enemy? Slip up, and he might just find out.
He looked at Emma and she smiled weakly.
“Nearly time,” she whispered, “Follow my every lead and you should be fine.”
Jack nodded, saying little in case his voice defied him. But this only served to encourage her.
“Are you worried?” she asked. “It’s going to be fine. We are searching only, and so long as our cover isn’t blown we’ll be fine.”
“Our cover?” he panicked.
“Tourists - hillwalkers? Remember?”
“Oh, right,” his memory returned to him.
“We can talk more when we’re out there, but you can’t mention this place. You can’t mention anything about what we are really doing here. We don’t know who may be listening.”
“Then how can we talk?”
“Simple. We lie a bit.”
Kyle was arching over them. As they were talking Jack had not noticed that the others had left and that they were now next to depart.
“The others have all gone West through to North East. I want you to bear along the hillside for about half a kilometre before beginning your ascent. I’ve seen a few flashes of torchlight up there so I think you should head more or less straight up the hill as you climb. It’s a bit wet out there, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. From experience, the trees are quite dense the side you’ll be climbing up.”
“From experience?”
Kyle grinned, “Resistance Training ground - you’ll know soon enough.”
“So what are we looking for, exactly?” Emma interrupted.
“We don’t know. Could be a stray hillwalker for all we know, could be a spy. All we need to do is neutralise them - bring them back here and then we’ll think of what to do with him.”
The idea disgusted Jack. Regardless of who this person was, they were going to capture and most likely kill him?
“Best prepare yourself for the worst, and hope for the best,” Kyle said, ushering them to the edge of the tunnel.
Laden with waterproof jacket, torch and heavy walking boots, Jack and Emma crawled their way to the entrance. Their hands were damp with the water that trickled down the tunnel. He felt moss and mud cling to his skin. As they reached the edge, they allowed their legs to dangle over. Jack’s could only just reach the rocks below. From here they could see the others beginning their ascent. Tiny black figures barely visible to the untrained eye were slowly crawling up the slopes and slithering into the dense forests, no longer summery green but painted with the grey hue of dusk. Above them all, the stars blushed in their majestic canopy.
Inside his ribcage, Jack’s heart thumped against the pressing anxiety. Everything he did within the next few hours was vital; every aspect of his escape needed to be engineered to precision. There was no scope for failure.
Beside him, Emma mistook his concentration for worry over their current mission.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to worry in silence,” she said, “If you have any doubts, you need to tell me. We need to work together on this.”
“I’d rather not,” Jack said abruptly, frightened that every syllable he said might betray him.
“We all feel a little alone in this world, there’s no need to make it a reality,” Emma outstretched her hand, “Together?”
Reluctantly, Jack took it and as he did Emma slid from the edge of the tunnel and landed on the rocks below, pulling Jack down with her unexpectedly. He hit the rocks sharply, stumbled, but remained standing.
“Good luck. I’m shutting the entrance now,” Kyle whispered behind them.
Jack turned around just in time to see the circular door, disguised as a drainage pipe, close quietly. They were in the open now. Emma was already marching onwards into the night.
His feet sunk into mounds of springy moss. A trickling stream weaved its way somewhere underneath. An eerie mist crept down the hillside, masking all in a hollow horror as the galaxy above burned ferociously through the black. Darkness stretched out in all directions. There were no hints of civilisation, no flashes of torchlight nor streaks of headlamps beaming from a passing car. The only light source was the cold silver from the crescent moonlight.
Noises lurked in the darkness. Snapping twigs; breathing, bodiless animals; leaves rustling strangely in the wind and all the while he felt that a pair of eyes were watching him, observing his movements and awaiting the moment to pounce… He quickened his pace.
Emma had not stopped to wait for him. Her dim outline cast the path ahead, but did not foretell the terrain he would have to cross to reach her. Squelching in the bogs, he was sure his boots were carrying twice their weight in mud, but he was grateful of their grip by the time he reached the rocky outcrop. Turning around he saw no trace of the others. He wondered where they had gone and to what end they might meet. Kyle said the man out there could be anyone - friend or foe, and what they would be to Jack he was not remotely sure of yet. Regardless, Jack would need to keep an eye out for the others when the time came to make his escape.
He had not planned far ahead: indeed he had not planned it at all. The sole thought migrating around his head was that at one point he would be able to sneak off unnoticed, find the nearest road and follow it until the first car stopped to give him a ride. Then he’d somehow make his way back to Edinburgh, back to Relugas Road and into Eliza’s arms. It would not matter what he said, she would forgive him because he simply returned. He could explain about The Resistance, he’d get a job, his Rations too and they could start a new life together. After all these years of living a hollow lie, a diseased state of being terrified of his past, he could now live out in the open, all secrets revealed, all regrets nulled.
A whole life awaited him back home, he need only steel his nerve to leave. Presently, he looked around him. Emma was far ahead, the others were not in sight: it might be the perfect opportunity, but he did not dare take it. He was still too close to the farmhouse and in the darkness he could never tell who might be watching him. Run now and he might accidentally run straight back into the farmyard; run now and he might be seen; run now and he might just ruin any chance of returning to normality and away from this madness. He carried on in Emma’s footsteps, relentlessly surveying his opportunity to leave.
Ten minutes advanced. Jack was clamouring over some boulders as he contoured the hillside, still following Emma’s lead. Each step he took, he felt farther from the farm and closer to Eliza. The gradient of the terrain was too angular for him to be anywhere near the headquarters now and surely the darkness had devoured any chance of someone spotting him through binoculars. His excitement was intensifying; soon he would be free. Every day he was filled with regret for chasing Alex down the street. If he had onl
y let him run off instead of hounding him down to explain what happened. No good had come of his actions. Instead he and Eliza were ripped apart. How long would she wait for his return? Was she still waiting? What had Alex told her - if anything at all? Were there search parties out looking for him, pictures of his face on street lamps offering a rewards for his whereabouts? Did his Dad ever return his final call?
Atop the boulders, Jack swept a glance of his surroundings. All was bleak black. Catching his breath, he scanned for any signs of human activity. At this stage, all lights or movement were his enemy. No one around here could be trusted.
Emma must surely be halfway up the hill. She had not once turned around to see that he was even following. Perhaps his time was now? While the opportunity presented itself, he must act. There might not be more than a few seconds worth before he was seen or before Emma finally noticed he was lagging too far behind. Unsure of where his feet would take him, he boldly stepped forward into the darkness. Though uncertainty gripped him at first, confidence assumed control of his stride - but it was ill-fated.
“That’s not the right way,” Emma called out from but a few yards away.
Jack turned and a burst of torchlight revealed her location to him. She was leaning against a dead tree bough and had clearly been there for some time.
“I thought you’d seen me,” she said, “But I guess my night-vision is better than yours.”
Hope-shattering though it was, Jack summoned all his strength to keep his wits together. Whilst his attempt had been unsuccessful, his true intentions were still preserved. There might still be time and opportunity before the night was through.
“Sorry, I can’t see anything right now,” he said, meandering back to her, “Didn’t want to use my flashlight just in case one of the others mistook it for a threat.”
“That’s alright, at least you’re thinking ahead,” Emma said, beginning to walk off.