The Cult of The Enemy: The Dark Places Trilogy

by S. G Mark

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I need to support him, for the sake of Eliza. I need to do this. I need to.”

  “Support who?”

  “Alex. For as long as he is leader of The Resistance then Eliza will always be in danger.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she is his sister.”

  Emma gasped dramatically, “Jesus fucking Christ, Jack.”

  Ignorant to Emma’s fit of exclamation, the world was speeding up for Jack. Every second accelerated by; his mind, now open to the deluge of reality, was registering every detail of his surroundings. Adrenaline pumped through his arteries and sent sparks shooting through his neurons. His breath quickened despite his stillness for he was absorbing and digesting all that he had seen in the past few years. The disappearances, the terrorism, Alex’s strange behaviour and the transient guilt that he carried constantly - not the guilt he reserved for his sister, but a guilt that ran so deep he barely realised it existed at all. The fearful guilt that he was in the wrong; the childlike guilt in which he feared he would be punished: it was monstrous, filthy and so disguised it was barely distinguishable at all. A black raging darkness within, too afraid of the light that it burrowed deep into his mind where it dwelled and fed on his doubt and paranoia.

  “Emma,” he said abruptly, “Do you think we are alone?”

  Looking around her first, she shrugged her shoulders, “I think so.”

  “Then why did someone just run off through the bushes?” Jack said, his gaze fixed vehemently on a dancing branch through which he had just witnessed a dark figure disappear behind.

  Emma marshalled her limbs together like a soldier and threw her eyes around like machine gun cover fire. Her focus eventually pinpointed the very same bush Jack’s eye was still fixed on. It was still gently bobbing up and down, as if disturbed by choppy waters.

  “Fuck,” was all she said, but it was all that Jack needed to promptly leap to his feet and commence chase.

  Whoever it was, whatever their agenda, he needed to catch up with them. Whatever they may have heard, he wished to whatever god existed that they had not heard what he had said about Eliza.

  He ran as if his life depended on it, and it might very well given what the figure potentially overheard. They may not know his name, but they knew Eliza’s and that was enough for Jack to ignore any pain that throttled his chest or splintered through his calf muscles as he ran, weakened by months of malnutrition and exhaustion.

  Fortunately the moonlight was kind to him and revealed glistening pools of blood in its silver light. The figure was gravely injured, judging by the volume of blood loss and Jack fathomed he could not have run far. Behind him he heard Emma’s footsteps - she was fast, but not fuelled by the spirit that ran through his veins.

  The faster he ran, the more determined he was to find this mysterious person. At first he feared they were one of the others, but he soon dispelled that theory: after all, why would they run from their own kind? The notion made him shiver inside - was he already part of them, without realising it? Had he been assimilated without his permission? Did he even care to the extent that he used to?

  A grave scene beheld him as he brushed through the dense foliage and into an unexpected clearing. The first noise that met his ears was not the groans of the man in pain, but the gentle, soothing rush of a nearby waterfall that calmed his nerves and made him realise he was staring down at an injured human and not what he had feared.

  The man was lying limply against a tree, visibly frail and wheezing his last breaths. Jack collapsed beside him, eager to ease his pain. Through the moonlight, he could make out the man’s youthful face, his grizzly beard and his furrowed eyebrows; but the twinkle in his eyes was pierced with pain. It would have brought a tear to Jack’s eye had he stopped to think; but he had not the time.

  “Are you alright, where are you hurt?” the words left his mouth in a hurry.

  The poor man whimpered a response, “It’s too late...”

  “I can help you, just tell me where you are hurt,” he reiterated slowly, recalling every medical drama he had ever seen. Apply pressure to the wound, comfort the patient and reassure until they are calm.

  “You can’t help me,” the man said, coughing out dark blood into his hands, “It’s too late.”

  “I won’t let you die,” Jack cried.

  “It’s okay, I want to… after the things I’ve been through, I need to…”

  Jack tore off his anorak and threw it around the man, “Who are you?”

  “Another flower that didn’t make it,” the man said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are but I overheard what you said... “

  Jack was initially fearful, but let the man continue.

  “You must be the bravest man I’ve ever met, to stand and wilfully disregard the lies you’ve been told. I wasn’t that brave. I ran before they broke me. Didn’t stop them shooting at me though.”

  “Please, let me help you,” Jack said softly.

  “I don’t want you to,” he said, “I can’t live with the pain you see… not the physical pain, no… you see I watch it in my head constantly - the horrific replay of events. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen them die now, but I don’t want to watch them anymore. They were my brothers, my kin - my comrades.”

  “What can I do? Tell me how I can help you?”

  The man coughed and spluttered and cried in an instance of pain, “I came here for one thing and one thing only. I came here to warn you.”

  “About what?”

  “The mission we were on… they knew we were coming. They were ready for us.”

  “What?” Jack was astounded.

  “I know I can trust you because of what I overheard you say, I know can. You’re Alex’s closest friend and I’m sorry I never got a chance to get to know you, but whatever I say I need you to keep this to yourself. You cannot tell anyone but Alex. Promise me this? Promise me on his sister’s life, if you love her so much?”

  Fear tightened his vocal chords, but he spoke nonetheless, “Yes. I promise.”

  “Good man. There’s a spy among us. I don’t know who, but you need to find out before it’s too late.”

  “Fuck, are you sure?” Jack said, attempting to make the man’s passing as comfortable as possible.

  “Certain. Please, no one must know. I put my family’s life in your hands,” he said, “Alex knows who they… are… tell them I love them…”

  “I will,” Jack was choked with tears, “But I can help you, I can still help you…”

  “You… you already… did…” the man’s voice slipped into a whisper and his body lay still upon the ground.

  Jack’s finger, shaking with the reality of what he had just witnessed, drew over his face and closed the man’s eyes: dignity always in death.

  Barely had the man’s body been still a moment did Emma’s footsteps thunder through his final breath. She stopped dead, consuming the scene before her with military precision. Jack saw how she was unable to process the man’s dead body humanely - the way she stared at it, he might have been the bough of a tree.

  “He died,” Jack said simply, mindful of his promise, “I didn’t even catch his name.”

  “It’s Thomas,” she said authoritatively, “He was on the mission with my brother. Did he say anything?”

  “He was unconscious when I arrived,” Jack lied, exceptionally well. “I’m sorry, did you know him well?”

  “We need to call the others,” Emma said, taking out her torch and communicating her message through Morse Code.

  “Do you think they will come?” Jack asked, absentmindedly tucking his anorak around the deceased.

  “I hope so,” she said, we cannot bring his body back by ourselves.

  “Bring it back?”

  “Of course. Would you want your friends to be left to rot in some middle-of-nowhere woods? The man needs a funeral - the man needs some fucking dignity after what he has been through,” she was
angry, but Jack could understand why.

  Every minute or so Emma repeated her transmission, though Jack did not know what it was she was saying. If he were to join, he must learn, he thought idly to himself.

  After around fifteen minutes, they both heard the rustling of leaves nearby and soon after they were joined by the others. Jack could scarcely remember their names, but did recognise their faces. They acknowledge him with a respectful nod.

  “He died just as I found him,” Jack said solemnly, “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Lance said, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

  After everyone arrived, the men grouped together to carry the body, Jack included. It felt strange to be carrying a corpse, but he found it strangely comforting that it was not someone he knew. Perhaps he found it easier because the last corpse he had seen was his sisters, perhaps it was merely the shock of the evening’s events. A few hours prior he had been planning his escape and his elaborate - if fantastical - return to Eliza’s arms.

  Finding the path was not easy, regardless of the burden of the body, but the women guided them through with their torches and it was almost beautiful to be a part of - the procession of the fallen.

  It took them nearly an hour to descend the hillside and at the bottom they promptly switched off their torches.

  “We can’t see the way through?” Jack said.

  “We know this path too well - we don’t need any lights!” Joey said.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll know soon enough,” Emma said, guiding him through with her outstretched hand.

  Slowly they ventured up the slope not to the tunnel from which they left, but to the farmhouse itself.

  “Won’t we be caught?”

  “It’s about one in the morning, Jack,” the other girl said, “No one but our own people know we are here.”

  At the gate to the farmyard, they stopped. The guards must have seen them coming from afar because they immediately opened the gates to allow them passage. Each of them took their helmets off in respect.

  The girls led them through the mud and slime saturated farmyard and into a desolate barn. Inside wafted of a distinct smell of manure and grain. The men placed Thomas’ body on a stack of hay. Jack could not help but feel it was undignified. He did not know what horrors the man had seen, but to want death more than to live with the memories of them? Jack felt that the man’s last resting place should be better than a pitiful cube of hay.

  Fortunately his disgust was dispelled when Lance announced that they would bury the body properly in the morning.

  “Where will you bury him?”

  “We have a spot,” Lance said, “Where all our comrades live forever.”

  With that, Lance patted him on the back and led the other men and women out of the barn; all except Emma and Jack.

  They stood looking at each other, both simultaneously terrified to speak. Jack had no grasp on what bereavement was supposed to feel like. The only time he had experienced anything like it was when his sister had died, but it was not grief he felt supremely: it was guilt. Staring down at the lifeless corpse on the hay, he did not feel anything but an insurmountable and unreckonable numbness.

  “I don’t expect you to feel anything,” Emma said, scarily reading his mind. “I don’t know if I even feel anything anymore.”

  “I know why you feel bad,” Jack said and Emma’s gaze looked guiltily away instantly. “He must’ve been the last person to see your brother alive…”

  “Don’t,” she said quietly, “I can kill a hundred men, but I am not strong enough for that.”

  She walked abruptly away, leaving Jack alone in the barn and, once again, consumed by darkness.

  Jack stood for a few minutes contemplating what had just happened. Emma’s conversation whittled away at his energy. Everything she had said drilled into him deeper the more he thought about it. Did this mean that he was one of them? What was his role? What was he able to bring to The Resistance? Jack was both scared and dangerously excited. This was not a job in the post office, filing away parcel after parcel. This was not routine work. This was not meaningless admin or data entry: this was powerful, worthy of his attention and yet he almost felt unworthy to be a part of?

  The Resistance, what did it mean? What did they stand for? What were their limits and what were their beliefs? But what did it matter when Jack cared little but the security of Eliza? What more was there for Jack beneath the surface desperation for Eliza to be safe? They were not questions that Jack could answer by himself. He needed Alex: the closest friend he had ever had. No matter what lies Alex had said, they were nothing on Jack’s. What was it that Emma had said? Lies to protect others, and lies to protect himself?

  “Jack,” the voice fell upon his ears like an avalanche.

  He turned and saw the shadowy figure of Alex Reader standing in the doorway to the barn, his outline defined only by the deeper darkness behind him.

  “Come with me,” he said, turning and disappearing out of sight.

  Jack followed obediently, and with each step the questions he had to ask Alex mounted. However, something had changed. Jack no longer felt anger or rage towards Alex; he felt pity and admiration. No matter what had happened over the course of the past year since the terrorist attack in Edinburgh, Alex had stayed true to the person he was: caring, loyal and just. It was only Jack that had selfishly compromised who he was.

  Allowing himself one last look at the body of the man he had tried to save, he saw how moonlight spilled in through one of the high rafters in the barn and bathed the poor lifeless soul in a cold pool of ivory. Something stirred in his stomach; something he could barely put into words. It was like the first storm of Autumn, or the first day in Spring when the grass is no longer hampered by frost, but charmed with dew. As he shadowed Alex’s footsteps, he realised that he was descending into more than just the bunker. He was converging on a point of no return. Though he knew he was unlikely to change his mind on what he was about to do, he took sweet delight in toying with the options before him.

  The choice that lay before him was thus: to disclose to Alex everything that the dead man had told him, or keep his silence, thus allowing any spy within the ranks to operate as normal, feeding the CRU and police with vital information. The latter would likely destroy The Resistance, or at least severely damage it: which was why it was strange that he dismissed this option almost as soon as it presented itself.

  Alex led him straight into his office and shut the door behind him. Every movement was bound by anger. Jack slunk into a chair, sighing with light relief at no longer being on his feet, and watched Alex as he heaved his raging limbs about his office, displaying his capacity to keep a temper brewing.

  Eventually, he did join Jack in sitting down - on his pathetic ex-dining chair that had been crowned with a battered and stained cushion. He leant forward, forearms leant on the table and took a few deep breaths before speaking.

  “Thank you for your help tonight,” he said, clearly pained at thanking Jack.

  However, the man himself could not quite take his appreciation without guilt - for had it not been for Emma he would have disappeared into the night.

  “Alex, I need to ask you something,” Jack said, wanting to make his next move with as clear a judgement as possible.

  “Go ahead,” he invited, almost warmly.

  “Why didn’t you just kill me when you had the chance?”

  Alex stared in Jack’s eyes with a defiant resentment. It took a number of seconds for him to answer, but when he did, he did so with a calculated tone.

  “I’m not a monster, Jack,” he begun, “I don’t kill anyone for the sake of it.”

  “You see, I’m not sure I believe that,” Jack looked back his close friend, pulling aside the veil that he preferred to keep shrouding the truth. “How many times have you taken a life?”

  “I have never counted,” he replied, coolly. They might have been discussing football results.

 
“More than five? Ten?”

  “At least.”

  “Yet the only time you’ve ever explicitly shown any sign of outward remorse was, by your own admission, on the day of your first. Which means the others came more easily?”

  “But not without hardship.”

  “See you could have killed me - and I’d understand that. But making me disappear? Isn’t that a larger problem than it’s worth?”

  “I saw potential in you.”

  “Potential you could use?”

  “No,” he said, “Not just that.”

  “Then what else?”

  “Numb, you used to say. Numb, drifting, at a loss - trapped in a relentlessly dull job with no hope of progression or even expectation to want anything more. You inherited your ambition from your parents, but it is shunned by current society. You want more than just the ordinary, because it cannot keep up with your buzzing mind - you don’t know what you want, but you want it now. It’s… like an open wound, bleeding out except instead of blood, it’s every morsel of energy and hope you have left in you and it’s weeping out of you… day by day, hour by hour, another piece of your soul parts company and sails off into the sunset. You want to know why I kept you alive? Because at some point through what I just said I stopped describing you and started describing how I felt before I joined The Resistance.”

  Jack gulped. They were the same. For the past year, Jack had believed that Alex was the one who changed - and maybe he was right, for in a strange way he had changed. Alex had found something that was more than just a distraction. The only difference between them - what had driven the real wedge between them - was that the pent up energy that tormented Jack was flowing freely for Alex.

  “I need to tell you something,” Jack said, but then a bright idea sprung to his mind, “Give me a pen and paper.”