by S. G Mark
The door abruptly opened. Both James and Jack’s attention veered dramatically to the guests that had just arrived. Innocently they wandered in, smiling and holding drinks in their hands. Collectively, The Resistance had were all part of the same Venus Flytrap and the first of the insects had just landed on their leaves.
The first group that arrived were a medley of ages and dress styles. The two women were decades apart but neither dressed their age. The younger of the two was dolled up in some throwback to the eighties, which by the condition of her skin, she probably couldn’t remember anyway. The older woman was wearing something slightly more sophisticated but ill-fitting. It hugged her hips in all the wrong places and Jack could not help but imagine shrink-wrapped slices of bacon. The two men were in plaid shirts and jeans and both appeared very relaxed. As they diffused into the room, another set arrived. A teenage boy joined two slightly older men. Jack noted that he looked a little lost and confused even by his friends’ side. But a strikingly similar appearance between the boy and one of the older men told Jack that he was more the younger brother dragged along than important invitee.
Over the course of the next fifteen minutes they all arrived, shaking hands with those they had not yet met and hugging those they had. They were even integrating with those who Jack knew to be in The Resistance. James was presently laughing and joking with a couple of very attractive girls. Meanwhile, Jack was residing in the corner keeping out of everyone’s way. He felt that his fear was more manageable when he was crammed into a corner. Somehow it had nowhere to go and nothing to feed off from.
Kyle called for hush a few minutes later. Everyone kept quiet as someone switched off the lights. A trickle of light seeped in through the door frame. Heels could be heard descending the tiny rickety staircase as a woman’s voice questioned where they were going. Jack watched as the vast majority of the room held their breath in preparation for the surprise. They were here under the pretence of a party and Jack observed them with fascination as he slowly empathised with their ignorance. They were just here for a good time, to celebrate a simple life. They were here with friends to enjoy themselves - an opportunity which Jack knew to be rare in these modern times. Under their grinning facade, The Resistance would worm their way to their hearts and minds, gentle manipulation; a delicately phrased criticism of the government, the hint of anger towards the CRU. They would act as rocks, stemming the flow of the determined river.
The door burst open; the lights flicked on and the crowd at large - even Jack himself - yelled a huge, “Surprise!”
Anne was blushing from the front of the room. Blond hair wrapped upwards in a pleated crowd, she was casually stunning. Her lip gloss radiated her warm smile, but her eyes were locked solely on one man only. She strode up to him angrily, partly sexually, and grabbed his head and neck to pull him in for the most charged kiss Jack had ever seen. When she pulled away, the crowd around the couple dispersed and Jack was shocked to see who the man was.
“Trust you to organise all this, Neil!” she said in her syrupy Scottish accent.
Jack trusted that the relationship was all for show. Kyle had never mentioned a girl and certainly never thought he was ready to move on from Miriam. Regardless, the happy couple roamed the room as Kyle introduced her to all her friends.
With the pinnacle of the evening having passed, Jack was unsure of what to do now. From his safe little corner, he idly watched Kyle and Anne traverse the room, laughing and joking with their guests. He didn’t know what the protocol was now. Did just merge with the party and start asking questions about how they felt about the government? He looked for what the others were doing. James was still talking to the same two girls he was earlier. Maybe he had already started for the night. The other Resistance members were also mingling with the guests. Jack watched for several minutes as they all integrated with one another. It was difficult to distinguish the innocent party guests from the manipulative Resistance recruiters.
After twenty minutes, Kyle and Anne had navigated their way towards Jack.
“Anne, this is my old friend Charlie,” Kyle introduced.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Jack addressed Anne, pulling her gently in to kiss her on the cheek. It felt like that Charlie was the sort of man to greet women in such a way.
“How are you enjoying the party?” Anne asked, “There’s no need to hideout in the corner.”
The intensity to which she was looking at Jack signalled to him that it was more of an instruction than a gesture of kindness that she noticed he was feeling lonely.
“You’re right,” Jack agreed, “I think I’ll grab myself a drink.”
He smiled as he snuck past them and headed for the jug of tap water on the other side of the room. There was a continuous stream of people going upstairs to the bar to get drinks. However, with no coin in his pocket, Jack’s only hydration was the free tap water that the Inn had provided.
Close to the water jug there stood the boy that Jack had seen earlier. His face was half smothered by his stylised hair. He had a definite air of trying too hard, which Jack found endearing. The boy could not have been much older than nineteen, but he clearly lacked confidence. His shoulders were sunken into his body, as his head drooped downwards so that his only view was his own feet and the dusty floorboard. Something drew Jack to him - perhaps because the boy looked equally as lost and confused in this party as Jack himself.
“So how do you know Anne?” Jack approached the boy, who instantly shuffled his hair out of his eyes to see who was talking to him.
“Oh, I don’t really,” he said, “My older brother knows her well though. I was just dragged along here so that our mum could have some peace and quiet.”
“Ah, right, so you have no idea who any of these people are either?” Jack said, “I’m a friend of Neil. No idea who anyone else is though.”
“I don’t think many people have met this Neil guy,” the boy explained, “Paul, my brother, said he’d only met him twice before. He said Neil worked away a lot?”
It was one of the worst questions he could have been asked. They hadn’t explained to each other what jobs they did or where they did them. It was a nightmare. After everything Kyle had told him about creating the perfect lie and remembering all the details, Jack couldn’t help but feel angered that Kyle hadn’t bothered to explain who this mysterious Neil creature was.
“Yeah,” Jack could play for time no longer, “He never gets a chance to see his old mates. It’s good to see him again, and meet Anne as well. My name is Charlie by the way.”
He extended a hand to the boy. Charlie was a hand-shaker.
“Euan,” the boy took his hand.
“So you live nearby?”
“Yeah, still with my bloody parents,” Euan explained.
“Fucking nightmare isn’t it?” Charlie spoke through Jack’s voice, “I only moved out of my parent’s last year and I’m twenty-nine!”
“Oh joy, so I’ve got another eleven years of this ahead of me?”
“You’re only eighteen?”
“Yeah, which means I’m too young to know anything and too old to just fuck about,” he mumbled.
“What does that mean?” Jack said, even though he knew exactly what the boy meant by it.
“I left school in August,” the boy said, reminding Jack instantly of Eliza’s last day of school, “And I’ve been trying to get a job ever since but nothing. There ain’t nothing in this fucking town.”
Jack scoffed, this story was all too familiar.
“Same shit, different town,” he sighed.
“We got fuck all help when we left school as well,” Euan continued his rant, “We were just expected to go out there and get on with life. Paul left school four years ago and he’s still not got a job.”
“You get Rations though, right?”
“Rations?” Euan laughed at the suggestion, “We get enough to survive, but they cut ours by a third when Paul didn’t join us for cleaning the street. He
slept in or something. Fucking joke.”
“Wow,” Jack did not need to fake his shock, “I take it he was never late again?”
“Nope! Mum makes us go an hour early just to be on the safe side!”
Sipping his water, he subtly surveyed the boy. He was already embittered by the world and his anger seemed to be unrestrainedly directed towards the government. Such a young and malleable mind as this was nearly perfect for Jack’s first recruitment. Though he had no idea what he was supposed to do, he felt that there was a promise in this young boy that may be useful to their cause. He seemed determined to be independent from his parents and resented society holding him back. Though Jack did not know if this quantified the boy’s capability in believing The Resistance were more than just terrorists, he implemented his plan regardless.
“When I left school I went to university,” Jack said, “That’s where I met Neil. We lived together in our second year.”
“University? Man, your parents must be super rich.”
“Nah, this was before the big crash. Things weren’t great financially, but we weren’t reliant on Rations and our nights out weren’t restricted by Curfew. We didn’t even have ShutDown.”
The boy gazed at him in awe, “Seriously? I barely remember a point where there wasn’t ShutDown or that we bought anything without Rations. It’s just always been a thing.”
“I know, for too long it has,” Jack paused for a few seconds to allow the message to seep in.
Euan looked distinctly depressed, “I don’t reckon I’ll see a time where we won’t have them… Quite depressing, isn’t it? A lifetime on Rations.”
“It doesn’t have to be though, does it?” Jack threw the question in as if he were throwing a stick to a dog.
“What do you mean?” Euan asked.
Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Jack tried to justify what he meant. He had said it more to gauge the boy’s reaction than add weight to his argument.
“Life’s what you make it, that’s what I mean,” he steered away from the verbal car crash. It was too soon. The boy didn’t know of The Resistance or terrorism or autocratic governments. He was just a boy. A boy with big ideas on how the world should be run - like all eighteen year olds setting out into the big wide world. However, instead of creating his own adventures, he was trapped in his home town with little work and no future. What chance did the boy have in life? He had less than nothing. He was disadvantaged by being born at the wrong time. Twenty years earlier and he would have gone to university and experienced a life. He would have seen the world and would have a library of memories to look back on. But then his own children would be in the same position as he was right now and the cycle would continue, unbroken by generation and time.
“Euan,” he continued, “If you could have gone to university, what would you have studied?”
The boy pondered the question for a while, “Medicine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not clever enough to have gotten in for the course, and I’d probably make a shit doctor, but I guess I’ve always been good at helping people…”
“It’s very strange that you say that,” Jack said, slipping his hand into his pocket.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve always been good at helping people too,” he said, believing Charlie to be a far greater man than he ever was. Extracting a booklet from his pocket, he saw from the corner of his eye that it was a bright yellow copy of Terrorism: Six Ways to Report It. “Euan, can you do me a favour and pour me another glass of water?”
Euan nodded, taking Jack’s glass and turning his back on him to refill both their glasses. It was an opportunity not to be missed for the boy’s loose back jean pocket was just centimetres away. Not caring to look around for anyone watching, Jack slipped the booklet into the boy’s pocket and sighed with relief when Euan didn’t react.
“Here,” Euan handed Jack his glass, “I should probably find Paul now. Thanks for the chat.”
Euan wandered off into the crowd in search of his brother, leaving Jack with a self-satisfied excitement. In a few hours, when the boy went to bed, he would find the booklet and open it up. Maybe the contents would scare him at first, but in the morning he would want to re-read them. The ideas bound by the disguise of the CRU design would catch hold and in weeks and months to come, he’d start to ask questions. He felt a wave of pride that one day he may come face to face with the boy again - side by side as they fought this war together.
Jack caught Kyle’s eye and brushed passed a gaggle of girls to get to him.
“How’s the evening going?” he asked.
“Anne’s loving it, thank you for all your hard work,” Kyle said, “I see you made a friend over there.”
“Yeah, he’s the little brother of a friend of Anne’s. Quite a sweet boy. Reminds me a lot of myself,” Jack said, “Anyway, where is Anne?”
Kyle pointed to the other side of the room. Anne was laughing hysterically at one of her friend’s attempts at dancing.
“She seems really lovely,” he commented.
“That’s Anne all over,” Kyle smiled at his pretend girlfriend. “How are you enjoying the evening?”
“Great, though I wish I had some money for a proper drink,” he raised his half empty glass of water.
“Ach, I completely forgot,” Kyle took out his wallet and slipped Jack some notes. “It’s been a busy evening. Go get yourself something strong.”
“Cheers, Neil,” Jack thanked him, turning with the intent of heading upstairs to the bar when a catastrophic bang hit his ears and reverberated around the room.
After a second of stunned silence, the room erupted into screaming and yelling as the guests raced to gather their things. Jack whipped round to see a panicked Kyle staring wide-eyed at the door. Upstairs they heard the shouting and the screaming continue, but there was a fell sound far more menacing still. The siren wailed endlessly. The CRU.
As the guests shot up the stairs, Jack screamed at Kyle for direction. The other Resistance members were joining the gush for the door. Jack saw James push past the two girls he had been chatting to all evening.
“What do we do?” he yelled at Kyle.
Panic sweat dribbled down his back. The CRU might be seconds away. Any moment their feet may descend the steps, their firearms following in quick succession.
“We can’t run,” Kyle cried, “If you run they’ll catch you!”
“But we can’t stay…”
Diving through the frantic crowd, Anne grabbed both their arms and drew them back towards the far wall.
“Follow me,” she urged, panic-strickenly grasping the edges of an old oak cabinet.
Instinctively trusting her, Jack helped her push the cabinet free from the wall, behind which Jack spotted a hole big enough for a human to slip through. They dragged the cabinet far enough for each of them to squeeze through it. Anne went first, then Jack and finally Kyle. On the back of the cabinet a metal hook protruded and it was that which they used to heave it back into place, covering the hole and extinguishing all light.
Cowering in the darkness, they kept as silent as possible. Jack’s heartbeat thumped against his ribcage and his breath betrayed him. Outside the screaming continued, freckled with gunfire. The building carried the sound of heavy boots stomping on the creaking wooden floors; stampeding down the stairs.
“This way,” Anne whispered, tapping Jack on the shoulder and signalling for them both to follow her.
With no light to guide them, they crawled on their hands and knees single file around the exterior wall. Mud ingrained into the palms of his hands, Jack struggled to see how they were ever going to escape. Where was this passage taking them and what would they do when they reached the other end, if indeed there was an end? There was no telling that they were crawling through nothing but a trap.
A splinter of light shone through the wall and cascaded across Anne’s face.
“Stop,” she whispered, pressing her eye to the miniscule hole in the wall, “The
y’re inside.”
The dust settled around them as they suppressed their breathing and quietened their heartbeats. But when they heard the scramble of bodies being thrown across the room, the struggle to remain silent only worsened. Jack turned to Kyle, who in the pale light blinked panic back at him. The voices of the CRU officers just metres away were strangers; but their protesting cries of their captives were all too familiar.
“I haven’t done anything!” they heard a woman scream before the dull thud of her body collapsing to the ground.
Anne gasped and Jack knew that it was one of her friends.
“What do you know!” a commanding voice echoed through the tunnel. “Tell us now!”
He heard the a metallic clicking noise and he could withstand being blind no longer. Carefully he crept forward and pressed his eye against the tiny hole. Encrusted with dust and cobwebs, Jack’s view of the sickening scene was otherwise unobscured. He saw every disgusting, hateful detail.
In the centre of the room five people were knelt on the floor, with eight CRU officers encircling them like sharks. The Leader of the group had his gun withdrawn and was pressing it against the head of the farthest captive. She had long hair, smothered in dirt. The girl was distraughtly sobbing to herself. Her hands were tied behind her back and she was shaking uncontrollably to her right was a man Jack recognised as the barman. He stared intently at the floor. His cheek was bruised and bloodied. Next to him was one of the girls James had been talking to. Her left arm was soaking in blood and she was gazing at the man adjacent to her who was…. Jack’s stomach jerked… James.
“They’ve got James,” Jack whispered back to Kyle and Anne, “Five hostages. Two girls, the barman and…”
He saw the yellow booklet before he even saw the boy’s bruised and battered face. His hair was matted with blood. Fear poured out of his eyes, trapping Jack in a state of horrified guilt that even the clean sound of the bullet bursting through the woman’s brain didn’t penetrate. Grey matter pouring down her hair, the woman slumped to the side; and even then Jack didn’t dare look away.