“He’s a bit of a gangster.”
“I know,” he snapped.
She stumbled backwards and slapped her hands against the wall to steady herself. “What? You know him?” She hadn’t expected that. She’d only asked him for the sake of it. Leave no stone left unturned and all that.
His eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”
She recognised that look. It was classic Graham. He never did anything for free. If she let him see how desperately she wanted to know, he’d hold out on her until he found some way of benefiting from whatever information he had.
But she couldn’t hold out for long. That was the thing. She’d rationed her food as best she could, taking care to hide the empty packaging under the loose floorboard in her room so that Graham wouldn’t find them if he searched the place. He would at some stage, she knew, just like he’d searched it and taken money from her in the past. But even rationing had only gone so far. Soon she’d be out of everything except dried instant noodles. Which wasn’t a hardship—she quite liked them—but they were hardly filling.
That wasn’t the biggest problem either. She was running out of water and had no idea how to sterilise river water. She’d thought about trying to catch rainwater but she was never in one place for long enough during the day and she didn’t trust Graham not to try and poison her.
It struck her then: maybe she should try and poison him.
No. She couldn’t think about that now. She needed to focus on the task at hand. Graham was annoying, but that was all he was.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said as breezily as she could, thinking fast. Graham might have been a lazy annoying sod, but he was smart too. He’d sense an agenda a mile off so she had to be careful.
“Why’d you ask then?”
“Oh, I just heard he was looking for you. That’s all.”
She watched him closely while trying hard to give the impression that she wasn’t. He couldn’t know how desperately she wanted to know because he’d never tell her then. He’d always been spiteful. This was her last hope. She’d spent the last three days sneaking around and asking as many people as she could. She’d even checked the old phone book in the sitting room, but of course there was no listing for Harman, Harry. People like that didn’t advertise themselves, did they? There were other Harmans listed. She’d gone by some of the houses and watched them, but no-one ever came out.
She couldn’t keep going the way she was going. Even driving around was a risk now. If she drew the wrong person’s attention, who knew what might happen. She had a gun, but a limited supply of bullets. Si was screwed. This was her last hope. Graham was her last hope: that was how crazy the world had gotten.
“Looking for me.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I’m going to sleep.”
“No you are not.” He lunged for her. “Not until you tell me what the hell you heard. Why is Harry Harman looking for me? I don’t even know the bloke.”
She stared at him, even though her eyes were watering from the pressure of his hands on her neck. She’d often felt the urge to kick him in the balls, but never this strongly. She forced herself not to. “Let go of me and I’ll tell you.”
He let go and she did her best not to cough, even though that was all her body wanted to do. Adrenaline surged through her. Standing there and talking to him was an effort after what he’d just done, but she fought to calm down and listen.
She had to. For Max.
“Go on then,” he leered. “Tell me.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She really didn’t. But she knew she needed to make up something fast. “I… I… well I overheard two guys talking. One of them said Harry Harman had all his boys out looking for Graham Bradley.”
“But why? I don’t get it.”
“I don’t know,” she said, doing her best to look supportive and helpful. “Maybe you owe him money?”
She had no idea what Graham did for money. He’d always been vague about it in the past. He certainly hadn’t had a regular job that Si could remember. He hadn’t needed to. When he’d married her mother, he’d scored himself a house.
“No? What?” he seemed outraged. “Of course not.”
It was hard work keeping the scorn off her face. She imagined Graham owed a lot of people money. “I don’t know. I’m only trying to think of reasons why he’d be looking for you.”
“What the hell do you take me for?” He turned away, rubbing his cheek the way he always did when he was agitated. “What could he want?”
Si’s heart beat even harder. This was her opportunity. “Maybe it’s a different guy. I heard them say the name of the place. I can’t remember now. Something Field maybe? Not Wesleygate anyway, I’m sure about th—”
“It’s Hadstow, you daft cow. There isn’t another Harry Harman. One’s bad enough. What else did they say?”
She squeezed her lips between her teeth until she was sure she’d broken the skin. Anything to keep the joy off her face and risk making him suspicious. “I don’t know. Maybe you should go see him.”
“What? Are you mad? He’s not the type of bloke you want to mess with.”
“Well he’s already looking for you.” She shrugged. “You might as well find out why.”
“It must be a mistake. It has to be.”
My god, she thought. Graham’s terrified of him. “What does he do? He can’t be that bad.”
“Can’t be that bad?” he scoffed. “You have a lot to learn about the world. He’s only the biggest pimp and drug dealer in Hadstow.”
Si tried to hide her shock. She should have known. Legitimate people didn’t have gangs of men running around doing their bidding. They didn’t take honest people by force. She’d known all along that Harry was bad news. “Jesus. He’s going to have a hard time now, isn’t he? Maybe he’s not so frightening.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“No, of course not. He’s probably just as screwed as everyone else now. Money’s no good anymore.”
“Not likely,” Graham said with a sigh. “He’ll have found something to sell or threaten people with.”
“Ah. Shit,” she said. Part of her wondered if she could put Graham in Harry’s path and somehow use him as a buffer. “Well I hope it turns out to be a mistake. The two guys I heard talking… well, they both looked like winos so I wouldn’t take what they said too seriously.”
“Is that so?” he sneered. “Who are you to look down on people? Look at you: you’re a mess.”
She did her best to look troubled before she made an excuse to go upstairs away from him. That was mild for Graham: polite, even, compared to some of his rants. He’d never liked her.
But she couldn’t care less. He’d pointed her towards Harry when she’d almost given up hope.
She closed her room door quietly and jammed a chair under the handle so Graham couldn’t snoop through her stuff while she was sleeping: if he tried to break the door she’d hear him and wake up. She hoped he wouldn’t kick off that night of all nights: she needed every moment of sleep she could get because tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.
Si was going to Hadstow.
Annie
Annie shook her head. They’d been searching for days. They’d tried every library and police station they passed, no matter how badly vandalised. It didn’t matter whether records were kept digitally or on paper: most of the libraries had been looted. Their guess was people were using the books and papers as fuel. Even if Harry had a paper record, it was gone now. They’d soon given up trying to find more information by the official route, having tried and failed to figure out where all the police officers had gone. Clive reckoned they’d decided it was far more sensible to look after their own families and loved ones than to try and keep some sort of order. Because there was no way a few officers could restore order over this. It was carnage. Even having a gun didn’t make her feel safe.
Door knocking wasn’t helping them. Not even with a former policeman. They st
ood out like sore thumbs in the area around the garage. Harry was the only name they had and no-one seemed to know him. Or if they did, they weren’t letting on.
“This is useless,” she muttered, when what must have been the ten thousandth door they’d knocked on that day was slammed shut in their faces.
“It is what it is,” Clive said calmly. “We’ll get there eventually if we keep digging.”
“What if we don’t have time? What if Si’s found them already?”
Clive sighed. They’d been through this before. The truth was they spoke of little else. It was getting harder and harder to find a safe place to sleep as the chaos grew and everyone else had the same idea of seeking refuge in places that weren’t traditionally seen as accommodation. When they did find somewhere, one of them always stayed awake to keep watch while the other slept.
“I don’t think she’ll have found them. She’s nineteen, remember? She grew up having the internet. All she’s got is a name and she’s not used to getting information the old-fashioned way.”
“Not that knowing how to get information the old-fashioned way has helped us,” Annie said drily. “We’ve gotten exactly nowhere.”
They hadn’t just tried to find Harry. They’d been asking about Si too. And her stepfather, though all they knew about him was that his name was Graham and he was a bit of a layabout. Only a small fraction of the doors they knocked on were even answered, which made Annie fear that even if the information they needed was out there, the people that had it were no longer in any fit state to talk.
“Look,” Clive said. “That looks like a library up ahead.”
Annie grunted. She admired his ability to stay positive, but she was getting more and more frustrated. It felt like they were doing nothing. She had suggested trying to force the truth out of some of the people who were obviously holding back on them, but Clive had refused to even consider it.
When they got closer, Annie saw that he’d been right. It was a library. Not that it mattered. “It’ll probably just be in ruins like the rest of them. Why don’t we knock on more doors? Try and find out who the local troublemakers are and see if they know Harry.”
“Annie,” he said, sounding pained. “No. We’re not going to be much use to her if we get ourselves beaten up or killed, are we?”
She winced at the thought. If that happened, Dan would never find out what had happened to her and she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him like that. They’d already been gone for longer than expected. “Okay let’s go to the library. Then we’ll go knocking.”
“We have lots of time.”
“We said that yesterday, Clive. And the day before. The days are short. Before we know it it’ll be time to find somewhere to sleep for the night.”
For a brief few moments as they walked through the entrance lobby and into the main library, Annie felt something approaching hope.
It soon disappeared when they saw the scene in front of them. She coughed as thick smoke wafted towards her.
“Don’t worry,” Clive said, putting his sleeve over his face. “No-one looks like they’re out to pick a fight. They’re probably just sheltering in here.”
She sighed. It was true. Everyone looked a bit inert, but that didn’t quell her disappointment. They weren’t going to find anything useful here. People had burned the books right there in the library instead of taking them away. Some of the great piles of ash were still blazing, others had long since turned to ashes.
“Hello,” Clive said, hunkering down to speak to a shrunken figure wrapped in a dirty blanket. He was staring at the remains of the fire nearest the door, humming to himself. Annie took an instinctive step back, worried about what he might do.
But he did nothing, only stared up at Clive with blank eyes.
“What’s going on here?”
Even the authoritative policeman’s voice wasn’t enough to shake some sense from him. That didn’t seem to work anymore. The man stared as if Clive hadn’t said anything.
Clive sighed and moved through the crowd. Several people were wrapped up in curtains or tatty old sleeping bags on the floor. Annie followed close behind. She wanted to get out of there. She hated being indoors now. This building was no exception: it stank of BO and sewage.
“What’s going on here?” he asked an old woman. She wasn’t that old, Annie realised to her horror when she got closer. The woman’s face was unlined but her skin was crepey and grey from lack of food and sleep.
“It’s a party,” she said in a voice that was completely devoid of emotion. “What do you think?”
Clive said nothing. The woman said nothing. “We’re looking for our friend,” he said finally. “I’d hoped to find the records here but it looks like every bit of paper in the place has been destroyed.”
The woman sighed. “Tom. It was his idea. Break in and lie low. Anything to keep away from the army.” She snorted. “That was before others came and started setting the books on fire. Stupid. At least the army had food and water. We’re trapped here anyway. Too tired to try and find them now.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.” Her expression hardened. “Do you have any food? I’m starving. There’s not a thing to eat anymore. Every shop, petrol station and restaurant has been picked clean. Even the rubbish bins don’t have nothing anymore. There’s too many people and no food.”
Annie filled with guilt at the thought of the breakfast bars in her backpack. They had a limited supply that was quickly running out. And if she took one out, the room wouldn’t stay calm for long.
“Sorry. No.”
“Nothing to eat anymore,” the woman said, cursing to herself under her breath.
Clive hadn’t taken his eyes off the woman. “I need to know where the army.” He turned to Annie. “The last thing we need is to go running right into the middle of them.”
She shuddered at the memory of her encounter with the army outside King’s Cross station. That felt like a lifetime ago now even though it had only been little over a week. She’d been relieved to see them at first, thinking they’d help get her out of the city to safety. She’d come very close to being locked up. The soldiers had orders to lock people up for their own safety until the power was restored. The only problem was, as Annie had known, was that wasn’t likely to happen for months or years. “I’d probably still be locked up in that station if I hadn’t legged it.”
The woman nodded. “That’s what Tom said. He didn’t think about food, though. Silly git. We’ll all starve here.”
“Come on,” she whispered to Clive. “We need to get out of here.”
“Wait. Where did you see the army?”
“Where’d you think? Of course they came to us first. They think we’re all scum.”
Clive frowned. It was clear they weren’t going to get much sense out of her. The poor thing had probably started to lose her mind.
“Tell me, have you ever heard of a man called Harry Harman?”
The woman paled. “Wha… what?”
“Harry Harman. Do you know him?”
She looked all around her, eyes wide. “No. Get away.”
Annie frowned. “You know him? Tell us where he is. We need to find him.”
The woman laughed; a surprising sound in the strangely hushed room. “I doubt it, lovey. I really do.”
“He has our friend.”
There was a flash of sympathy in the woman’s eyes before they hardened again. “You’d best leave them to it, then. No use in chasing down Harry Harman. Run away, more like.”
“Leave us alone for a moment,” Clive murmured. “Please.”
“What? No! They’ve been circling around like vultures. If they see you alone they might mug you.”
“Let them,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve got nothing except the gun and they’ll run away pretty quickly if they see that.”
The wait felt endless. Annie had never felt so vulnerable standing outsi
de in broad daylight. It seemed like anything could happen and nobody would ever know.
Finally, the door opened and Clive came hurrying out.
“It’s okay,” he said when he saw her face. “They were calm when I left.”
“Did she tell you?”
He nodded. “Hadstow.”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s a very deprived area. It sounds vaguely familiar now that I’ve spoken to that woman. From training down through the years. She says most of her neighbours were glad to see the army because things had been kicking off and getting out of hand. Robberies, people being stabbed over stale loaves of bread. And that was a few days ago.
“Harry is notorious. He runs the area, apparently. Drugs and prostitution. Rumours have been flying around that far from ruining him, this has only made him stronger. He knew what was happening before anyone, she says, and he stockpiled food, cars, fuel, everything he could get his hands on before anyone else had fully cottoned on to what was happening.”
“My god,” Annie gasped.
“That’s why we need to be very careful. Not just of the army, but of this Harry character too.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. Si is going to go straight to him as soon as she figures out where he is.” She shook her head in a panic. “You’re telling me now that he’s a pimp?”
“Well,” he said drily. “It sounds like he’s changed direction since the EMP strike.”
“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck. I doubt he’s turned into a regular shopkeeper. We’ve got to find him before she does.”
“We’d better call it a night.”
“What? We’ve just got our first solid lead in days.”
“Yes, we have, but it’s getting dark. Don’t forget what she told me about that area. We don’t want to spend long there, never mind going in after dark.”
Fighting Darkness: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller (Fighting to Survive Book 2) Page 9