The Cult of The Enemy: The Dark Places Trilogy

by S. G Mark

  “Can we talk?” Jack said, “Next door. I think we need to talk.”

  “I should call them in. Let them take you away. You deserve to be locked up for what you’ve done,” he pressed against Jack’s chest hard, nearly stabbing him with his fingertips.

  “Jon, please, don’t do this! He was the first person your daughter ever saw, don’t - for her, please just don’t,” Eliza cried, clutching her child in her arms as he eyes melted into desperation.

  Jonathan let go of the pressure and pushed Jack through into the hallway. Finding his feet, Jack strode into the living room and turned to see Jonathan shutting the door. This was between them: two men holding all the same cards.

  “How dare you… how fucking dare you come back into her life like that,” he was shaking with anger, “She cried every fucking night after you left. She cried and there was nothing I could do to console her. After all these years her dead brother was alive? Her ex lover wasn’t quite the murderer the press had made out? I mean did you ever think what it would be like for her? You claim you love her but you don’t know the first thing about her? And you promised, you fucking promised that you wouldn’t ever come back. I committed a crime just so that you could leave, just so that I could make her happy - and you know what? After every lie you ever told her, she still cared for you. She probably still does.”

  Breathing deeply, Jack marshalled his thoughts and discarded the weakness within. What had to be done had to done, there was no room for error or doubt. The blade had been sharpened, and this was the final cut.

  “Then tell her not to,” he said.

  Jonathan looked taken aback.

  “I came back to say goodbye,” Jack lied, “I should have left hours ago, but she went into labour and I couldn’t leave her. So I stayed, for one last time. But we both know I can’t see her again. I can’t be here. I can’t be normal. And I am… I am profoundly jealous of you. Because you’ll have what I won’t ever have. I don’t mean Eliza, not remotely. I mean this,” he gestured to the house, “Regardless of whoever wins this fight, I’m damaged goods. So I came to say goodbye, to life I once lived, to a girl I once loved. I’m sorry if I caused you trouble. I’m sorry if I caused you pain. But you are both blessed with never knowing exactly how much pain I am in right now.”

  Jonathan looked blankly at Jack, as if hovering between ecstasy and uncertainty.

  “I know you’re still in the haze of fatherhood, that’s fine,” Jack said, “But I need one last favour and I will never darken your door again.”

  “What?” Jonathan said.

  “Get me to London safely.”

  “Why?”

  Jack stared at his enemy and realised quite who the man behind the facade might be. He wasn’t evil, he was a man with an unfortunate job. How many times had Jack ever questioned what he was doing, whether it was morally right or even what it meant beyond his own interests? By all rights Jack should fear him, instead he just pitied him.

  “Because if I don’t reach London, then so many people will die. Not by my hand, not even by yours. Maybe the memos never reach your desk, maybe the conversations never reach your ears, but you know. You know it like you know the sun rises, you know it like gravity - it’s just something you accepted a long time ago. And that’s okay, that’s fine. I don’t blame you, not really. But you know this isn’t right.”

  “Coming from a terrorist?”

  “Coming from a man who has made a lot of mistakes,” Jack interrupted, “Tell me who is the terrorist here, when you are too scared to call your colleagues to have me arrested.”

  Jonathan quivered on the spot, and Jack had an idea of what he was thinking.

  “Look, call them - call the CRU the second I’ve left the city, if that makes you feel any better,” he said, “Just let me have this chance to make a difference.”

  “What are going to do?” he said, “Kill more innocent lives?”

  Jack shook his head, “It used to anger me, meeting people like you - like I used to be. You know it took me three months to submit to The Resistance? I didn’t want to believe, hell I still don’t want to. This is it. This is the way of life and everyone has accepted it. To walk out the door and fear that you might not come back. To starve yourself because society may judge you for Rations? To report on friends who fucked you over? How many people have you put away that claimed innocence? How many lives have you destroyed just by following protocol? You judge me all you want, but just remember that while you were out tearing apart lives, I was with your wife delivering your first child. A terrorist was the first face your daughter saw.”

  *

  He hid upstairs as Jonathan shouldered a weak Eliza through the house and into the car. From the moth-eaten curtains in what used to be his old room but which had been transformed into a nursery, he watched her smile with sheer bliss as she cradled her daughter. Blood and sweat smearing her skin and clothes, she seemed to glow. Jack’s eyes grew damp as the car crunched out on the gravel driveway, down the street until it was out of sight.

  Eventually he dropped back from the window and turned to face the darkness of the nursery, a shaft of stray light from the hallway providing a meagre warmth to his frozen heart. The house echoed with a crisp absence. Jack’s energy seemed both depleted and renewed. The anchor of pain that had been dragging along the seabed for his entire voyage was slowly rising to the surface with such velocity he felt he was experiencing the bends. Seeing her with her child - their child - he knew there was nothing left. Only a residual pain remained, and he did not savour the last taste.

  Jonathan had told him to stay in the house until he got back. He was going to leave Eliza and their new daughter overnight in hospital. There was no doubt that this was so he could better concentrate on ridding his new family of Jack forever. It seemed they had reached the tipping point, and Jack knew he could push his luck no further with this man. He had asked too many favours, and risked her life too many times.

  Eventually, Jack left the comforting darkness and descended the stairs into the kitchen. The tiles were smeared with blood and bodily discharge. Pathetically, Jack reached for the mop in the cupboard and soaked up the remains of his love. It was as he squeezed the last drop of liquid into the bucket that Jonathan returned.

  The door shut back into place with a solemn clunk. A few seconds later footsteps approached his ears and Jack looked up, resting gently on the mop, to see the dishevelled man shuffle through the door.

  Scraping out a chair from the dining table, Jack offered it to Jonathan as he set about preparing a cup of tea. It was the remedy to all ails.

  Placing the mug in front of Jonathan, Jack took the chair beside him. He hadn’t made himself one, but now that he saw the steam rising so seductively, he wished he had.

  “Congratulations,” Jack muttered, breaking the uneasy silence.

  “Thank you,” Jonathan’s tone was reluctant. He took the mug in his hands to warm his palms.

  “Do you have a name for her yet?”

  Jonathan shook his head distantly.

  “It must be overwhelming,” Jack continued, “To be a father. You’ll be fine though.”

  “Will I?” Jonathan looked sternly at Jack, “My first act as a father was to escort my daughter and my wife to hospital so I could help a terrorist escape the law.”

  “What’s the saying? One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

  “Exactly whose freedom are you fighting for?” Jonathan slumped against the table, yawning dramatically.

  “It seems a shame I even have to point it out,” he said, “But it is not surprising. Not after the things I have seen.”

  “Spare me the details,” he sipped from the mug.

  “Listen, you can go off and do whatever the fuck you like after tonight,” Jack said, “You can believe me or fight me, I don’t care which side you are on.”

  “Just what side Eliza is on?”

  “She is your wife,” he said, “She is on your side.�
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  “Oh you’re going to take that attitude now, after all the time you’ve tried to seduce her?” he smirked, “You’re filth.”

  “Maybe if you stopped believing what people told you, you would have a better time understanding the world you live in - and the life you brought into it,” he said, “Maybe I’m filth, maybe I’m disgusting, but I’m not the one processing charges against innocent people just so I can meet the monthly quota. I’m not the one propagating a system that feeds only itself. You don’t want to know why the Rations don’t go as far as they used to? Fine. You don’t want to know where your friends and neighbours disappear to when they vanish into the justice system? That’s okay. Just don’t expect to be left alone when the rotting pile of shit you call a life falls to pieces when the rest of us catch up on exactly what kind of living hell we exist in.”

  Jonathan propped his head up on his elbow, “Is this how you persuade the rest of the idiots in your organisation?”

  “Most don’t need to be persuaded,” Jack said, “Most come to us. It’s the pathetic people they leave behind that need persuading.”

  “You know if really grows old,” he said, “This old self-righteous theme you have…”

  “This game is boring, Jonathan. We don’t like each other. We have established this. After tonight I will never bother you again. I will never even consider you in my thoughts ever, ever again.”

  “And yet you want one more favour?” he sniggered, “You’re like an addict wanting one last go before he quits… except it's always one more time isn’t it?”

  “You know with people like you, it’s little wonder the country is in the state it is in. There is always someone to apportion blame in a society that never accepts responsibility. Maybe if you stopped to consider…”

  He tailed off, realising who he was speaking to. Jonathan Franklin, the head of the CRU for Edinburgh. It was as if he were trying to teach an embryo to count.

  “Get me out of Edinburgh and you’ll never see me again,” he continued.

  Jonathan looked up optimistically, “It’s a start, but I need more. I need something back from you.”

  “What do you want?” Jack asked.

  The corner of Jonathan’s lips curled wickedly and in an instant Jack knew he must oblige to whatever repulsive whim he desired.

  Before midnight struck, under Jack’s instructions, Jonathan had called in a sighting of a Steven Lennox in the North of city. Shortly later, he had mobilised a unit to investigate and had ordered them out on patrol around the city. Only after he was sure that he was no longer required for the evening, did he return to Jack who had been waiting patiently in the kitchen.

  The plan was set and though Jack was sceptical that Jonathan cared about his survival chances, the two had prepared a detailed plan to allow Jack to escape the city and head to London under the radar of any surveillance systems. Jonathan was to drive Jack as far South as Lincoln, after which Jack was to lay low for the night until the morning news bulletins read that he had been spotted in Cardiff. At that point he was to arrange contact with the local Resistance members to organise transport into London for the following evening.

  Mary ran the safehouse in the small town. Situated in a flat on Steephill, Jack had watched the naive public swarm around the markets in a naive glow. He had never been to Lincoln before and was entranced with its rich history and poverty stricken modernity. As he sat in the window seat of the pokey one bedroom flat, he remembered the tales of Robin Hood and how they had infiltrated Lincoln and the surrounding forests. For a fleeting moment he caught inspiration before once again accepting that the ignorance of the public was too overwhelming to fight.

  That night Mary prepared a small meal that consisted of the many varieties of cooking potatoes as she could possible think of. There were eight people gathered at the table, half of them enamoured with Jack in a manner that made him wholly uncomfortable. His mission was to enter London secretly and had he followed Alex’s plan, he could already be there by now. More than likely Alex was aware that he hadn’t made his connecting car exchange and whether he had made assumptions after that Jack cared little for. So long as he could gain entry to the capital, then he cared little about what Alex thought. His job now was the most important in the country, and opinion mattered as the little pebbles in a quarry of boulders.

  “Oh it’s so special to have you here,” Mary could barely contain her enthusiasm as she served the plates in the living room.

  They were to eat on their laps, intensively watching the news. Jack thanked her, smiling sycophantically, as he returned his attention back to the television. His name had been mentioned several times already, but no longer was it accompanied by the same deep horror it once used to.

  “Are you sure you can’t stay more than the night?” she asked, pleadingly, “It would do our members here the world of good - knowing that you met with them.”

  “I can’t I’m afraid, I am needed elsewhere,” Jack said.

  “Not even for a few hours? I could gather them round tonight?”

  “Let’s watch something that isn’t the news, eh?” Jack reached for the remote, switching to a drama that instantly distracted Mary’s attention.

  This wasn’t how Alex had planned his entry into the capital, and certainly if he ever came to know Jack’s exact route and the reason for his delay, he would never hear the end of it.

  “Oh I love this programme,” Mary said, and there was something about her tone that amused Jack.

  He wasn’t sure what it was, or if it was anything but his gradual insanity surfacing once more. It was just nice to hear someone’s enjoyment - however trivial.

  “Do you have many visitors to the safehouse?” Jack asked her.

  “Not as many as we used to, no,” she said, “Traffic from North to South isn’t as high as it was and as much as I hate to admit it, there aren’t many activities going on in Lincoln to warrant anyone to stay with us more than a night.”

  “What do you do then, if you’re not hosting us? What did you do, before all this?”

  He was genuinely interested. Many a stay at a strange safehouse had involved constant mandatory questions he felt he needed to ask, but cared little for their reply. In those days he had been more concerned for his own safety or for what he was doing. However, his priorities had shifted significantly since then. He had proven to himself that he was capable of survival, that he was of use to the organisation. He now had room in his heart for people again, a genuine space that he could open up for them.

  “I worked in a chemist before all this,” she said, “Just selling shampoo and plasters, nothing fancy. There isn’t a lot of work down here but we have to make do.”

  “And what about now, how are you involved day to day?”

  “Well,” she sighed, “I do my volunteering in the community centre - helping out where I can and feeding information back to whoever cares.”

  “The community centre?” Jack raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s not as bad as some people think, not our one anyway,” she said, “I’m able to help people in genuine need. So long as I can keep on doing that, I don’t care who runs the scheme.”

  “But don’t you worry that they have another agenda, that maybe they are using you for unknown motives?”

  “Of course they are,” she said, “But a good thing’s a good thing, and maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge where it came from, right?”

  Jack was uneasy. He understood her, he just didn’t agree.

  They continued to watch the rest of the drama in silence and Jack was enthralled with the storyline, completely submerging himself in the fictional world it was creating. It was peaceful to escape, even for just an hour. When the credits flared on screen, Jack turned to speak to Mary but she had already fallen asleep on her sofa.

  Gathering the plates, he went to the kitchen to wash them and hang them on the drying rack. Outside he could hear sirens, but knew they weren’t for him, quite yet. Cleari
ng up the rest of the kitchen, he filled a jug of water for the night and blew out the final candle before heading to bed. Under the sheets he shivered in their initial coolness, before settling down into a comfortable sigh of relaxation. A slight pang of guilt flickered underneath his ribcage, but he quickly calmed it. He knew what it was he was feeling, but he knew he had only entertained the idea for the benefit of his own survival. Sleep grasped him, and the emotions of the evening were but a whisper in a nightmare.

  Morning dawned and he rose early, pulling on his clothes for a quick departure. London called and he had little time to dawdle. In the kitchen he grabbed himself some toast and gulped down the jug of water he had left out overnight. It hadn’t been touched.

  In the living room he found Mary still fast asleep on the sofa. She had woken just long enough to pull a throw over herself and adjust the cushions under her head. Jack smiled at her peaceful body. He didn’t dare wake her - not for a goodbye. Instead he grabbed a pen and paper from the dresser and scribbled a note to her.

  Leave as soon as you read this, leave. The CRU are coming at four - make sure you leave nothing behind.

  He tacked his note to the television screen and grabbed his coat and shoes. It was the something back that Jonathan had demanded. Safe passage to London in exchange for the lives in a Resistance safehouse. Disgusted with the request, Jack had only agreed to it to enable his own survival. He had no intention of ever going through with the plan and as much as he could potentially fear a backlash from Jonathan, he knew that he would never risk the safety of his own family and reveal the truth behind his knowledge of where Jack was headed. Still, he felt that he should have told the kind woman in person - as if his principles should have pioneered his practice. Instead, he left her in a blissful slumber to await the nightmare to come.