“I know.” Her body still juddering from big racking sobs. “I’m sorry. It’s so stupid. I don’t even care about that guy. I had no choice. It’s just… when’s this going to end? There are dead bodies everywhere. What are we even doing?” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s the lack of sleep and decent food. I know that logically, but I can’t calm down. He could have killed you, Clive.”
He nodded. He was feeling the effects of it too. He was far more fatigued and irritable than usual. “It’s understandable.”
“I was prepared before,” she whispered. “Short term goal to get home and all. This is different. I can’t live like this. You of all people know how to take care of yourself and they almost got you.”
“It’s fine. Really. You’re right. He almost got me. And I don’t have anything comforting to tell you. I wish I did. All we can do is fight our damndest against whatever comes our way.” He glanced at her. “Let’s get to this warehouse. Well, as close as we can. We’ll scope it out and go from there. Let’s find Si and get back to the farm.”
She nodded. “I have no problem with killing Harry and everyone around him after what they tried to do to us.”
Clive nodded. “Good. Neither do I.”
“I’m just scared. If that man could sneak up on us, what’s to stop Harry doing the same?”
“We’ll be as vigilant as we can be.” He accelerated out of the underpass, eyes focused on the road ahead.
Secretly, Clive was scared too. He was rapidly losing hope. He hadn’t ever thought there was much chance of finding Max alive.
Now he was beginning to fear the same for Si. A horrible thought had been niggling at the back of his mind since he returned to the car: at what point did they just give up and go back to the farm?
Clive
They found the warehouse easily enough. The car dealership the woman mentioned was hard to miss. From there, it was a case of driving around until they saw the sign for the old logistics company.
Clive drove past the entrance beneath that sign and turned in to the third driveway along, not much caring what was down there. It was too far away from the town to be a popular place to shelter and it seemed abandoned, which he guessed was the reason Harry had chosen this area in the first place.
At the end of the driveway, there was a large, nondescript warehouse. It was a big rectangle, which was less than ideal: there weren’t any nooks and crannies to hide the car in. Still, it was three warehouses away from their target, so it didn’t matter. If anyone heard the car and came to investigate, they’d have no way of pinpointing exactly where the sound had come from. They’d check the nearest buildings first which would alert Clive to their presence. With a bit of luck, he’d be able to neutralise some of them and make his job a little easier when it came to confronting Harry.
Something was niggling at him, though. It all seemed too quiet. He recalled what the woman had said about a country house. Were they too late?
Clive became aware of the fatigue in his muscles when it came to climbing the fence that separated this warehouse from the one next door. That wasn’t good. Harry’s people were younger. He’d seen new recruits survive a gruelling day of training on a can of Coke and a Mars bar. Younger men wouldn’t feel the fatigue as much as he was. Then again, how committed were they to whatever cause Harry was working towards? It all hinged on that. Not that that filled him with confidence. He’d heard colleagues talk about street gangs and how the lower members were almost indoctrinated into the organisation. He had to assume they were fiercely loyal to Harry.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Just the mentality of these people.” He cleared his throat as quietly as he could. There was only one warehouse between them and Harry now, and he planned to stay here and watch for a while before they moved closer. “I don’t care how young or innocent they look, Annie. When it comes to pulling the trigger you’re not to hesitate.”
She nodded. “You don’t need to tell me. They’re all Harry as far as I’m concerned.”
Clive landed as softly as he could on the uneven concrete. They’d not heard a sound as they watched from the second warehouse so he’d moved forward and crossed the second fence. There was only one more fence separating them from Harry’s place now.
“That was harder than it should have been,” Annie muttered.
“Wait until you reach my age.”
“I don’t think that’s likely. My life expectancy halved a week ago.”
“Yes, well.” He shook his head. “Better than growing old in a home at any rate.”
“Is it?”
He groaned. Depending on what was over that fence on the other side of the warehouse, this could be it for him. “Let’s not be so morbid.”
They hurried across the deserted yard, taking care to stay close to the side of the building and keep one eye on the driveway that led to the road.
This was good, Clive thought. Harry’s property wasn’t just one warehouse, but a warehouse with a smaller shed off to the side. Thank goodness they’d come in from this side: if they’d chosen the other side, all they’d have been able to see was the back of the big warehouse.
Once he’d taken in the layout, he stopped and frowned.
This can’t be right.
He had prepared himself to meet an army—there was no way they’d be able to take them on face-to-face, of course, but they might have gotten there eventually if they were clever about drawing them out.
He hadn’t expected this.
The yard was deserted. There wasn’t a person to be seen. That would have been understandable if it wasn’t for the fact that there were no cars around either.
Perhaps they drove them inside, he thought.
But even as he thought that, he ruled it out. Why would they bother hiding their cars when they could just leave one man outside to guard them?
“Shit,” Annie muttered. “They must all have gone to that country house the woman mentioned. How the hell are we supposed to find that? It could be anywhere.”
Clive’s heart sank. It made sense. Both to avoid the army and to avoid any rivals in the local area who might have gotten wind of the location. If the whole neighbourhood knew about this place, it wasn’t much of a hideaway. That was when he heard it.
“Shh. Listen.”
There were loud banging sounds coming from the large warehouse. He tilted his head to one side to try and identify the noises, but he couldn’t work it out. He expected someone with a trained ear would know immediately what tool was being used and on what.
He gasped.
“What?”
“I think we’ve found Max.”
Annie’s eyes widened. The next thing he knew, she was launching herself at the fence.
“Stop!”
It took a few moments for her to react. By then she was only a few feet from the top. “What? Come on.”
“It might be a trap.”
Annie took what felt like forever to jump down and Clive was convinced they’d been caught. He backed slowly up to the wall of the warehouse behind them, grateful that there were no windows on that side. At least now nobody could sneak up on them. He slumped down as low as he could go.
The banging continued. When it stopped, there was silence for a few moments. Then an engine roared into life.
Clive was immediately on high alert. He doubted they could be seen from where they were, but he couldn’t be sure of that. He watched, waiting for a car to emerge from the other side of the building next door at any moment.
It didn’t.
Nothing happened. The engine ticked over for a few seconds and then the noise disappeared.
After another minute or two, Clive stood up. “Let’s go.”
He hurried forward as soon as his feet touched the ground, alarmingly out of breath after a climb that wouldn’t have made him break a sweat a few weeks earlier. Now that he was closer, he saw the smaller shed was divided in two, with two doors on
opposite ends and windows set high in the walls. He felt uneasy about ignoring it, but the warehouse was where the noise was coming from and they had to check that out first. Unlike the shed, it had windows in the front and he didn’t even want to think about who might be watching. Thankfully, the yard was long and narrow, so they reached the building within a few seconds.
Inside, the banging hadn’t ceased since they started to climb the fence, which he took as a good sign that whoever was in there was unaware of their presence. He had his theory, but he knew better than to assume without proof.
The door looked solid and it was secured with a thick chain and padlock. Trying it would definitely betray their presence. Instead, he moved to the closest window, which had bars on the outside. They were about four inches apart so there was no hope of anyone getting in that way, though he could fit his hand through.
He took a deep breath and crouched low, moving forward until he was directly below the window.
“Stay alert,” he whispered. “I’m going to pop my head up and look in. Be ready. Stay low. Prepare for the worst.”
Annie shook her head. “This is all wrong.”
“How so?”
“It’s just so quiet. It feels like a trap.”
Clive rubbed his jaw. She was right. Everything about this felt wrong. Maybe they had hidden their cars in the warehouse for exactly this reason: to make them think Max was in there alone.
He looked around, trying to think of a better way.
There wasn’t one. And they couldn’t afford to waste more time.
Pete
“What are you doing, Pete? Jesus, that’s number thirty right there! You’ve gone and driven straight past it. She might have seen us. Idiot!”
Pete glanced at his brother. He’d never seen Josh this worked up. “Calm down, will you? It’s not my fault. I don’t know the roads. No panic.”
“No panic? If she gets scared and runs we’re screwed, Pete. He’ll kill us.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Anyway, we have a bigger problem. I can’t see her car.”
“Shit,” Josh muttered. “That’s exactly what we need. She’s already gone.”
“So? We’ll get her when she comes back. Harry said she’s been back every night.”
“Harry’s impatient. And I’d rather just get this over with. It’s going to be hard enough.”
Pete shook his head. He couldn’t take another of Josh’s tantrums. He’d been worse ever since they went back to sleeping at home. Maybe it was the fact that their mother was in a bad way that was turning Josh into such an anxious mess. It didn’t matter. Pete had had enough of listening to it. He pulled up further down the road.
“Why are you stopping? What are you doing, Pete?”
“No harm in trying, is there?”
“But she’s already left. Her car’s gone.”
“Shut up, will you? Maybe somebody took it. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been thinking about it all the way over here. You’re different to the rest of us.”
“What?”
“Think about it. You sound trustworthy. You look respectable. I have an idea.” He stared out the window. It was nowhere near as bad around here as it was on Pete’s road, but it was close. Wheelie bins had been tipped onto their sides, their contents spilling out over the kerbs and onto the road. Almost all of the bin bags inside that he could see had been pulled apart.
He knew it hadn’t been foxes. It had been people desperately trying to save the scraps that were now the only food they were ever going to get.
They were desperate. So maybe someone had seen her car and taken it. That was fine by Pete. It gave her fewer options. He’d kept Harry’s words in mind. She was clever. She’d try to get away.
“Well? Aren’t you going to fill me in on this amazing plan of yours?”
“We get her to trust us.”
“What? Seriously? That’s your plan? I thought you were going to suggest we break in there or something.”
Pete glanced at the house. “She shot Mo. And Zane. And the others. And he still wouldn’t give us guns.”
“That says more about Harry than it does about her.”
“Stop it, will you? Just listen for once. You do the talking. I’ve had an idea based on what Harry did to the mechanic. We’ll make her think we’ve come from him. Think about it. We know his address, his name and that Harry has him. We’ll use that.”
“I don’t know, Pete,” Josh said. “She’s not stupid. Harry said that as well, remember?”
“Think about it, Josh. She’s come all this way. We’ll tell her what she wants to hear. Well, you will.”
“Maybe she’s just come home.”
“Really? You think so? Look at this dump. And it can’t be much of a home if her own stepdad sold her out to Harry.”
“He was probably scared.”
“Would you betray Mum?”
“No! What do you think I am?”
“Exactly,” Pete said. “People don’t do that to family. She’s got no-one. She’s come back for the mechanic. She obviously has no idea where he is because she’d have gone there if she did.”
“I don’t like this, Pete. It’s sneaky. It’s wrong. I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do to her.”
“Then don’t. Think about what they’ll do to us if we don’t get her.”
Josh winced.
“Exactly. Now, come on. Are you up for this or not?”
Si
Si was lost in thought. She’d always been afraid of the attic, standing around on the landing when her mother went up and begging her to be careful. It was the darkness more than anything.
Now she wondered what she’d been so afraid of. It was warm and still. She had a torch. She sighed as she looked around. She knew without any doubt that her mother had been the last person up here. It was the one place in the house that was completely free of Graham. It was dusty, but everything was neatly stacked in boxes. She felt a stab of sadness when she spotted an old pram in one corner. It must have been hers when she was a baby. Why had her mother kept it? She wasn’t a hoarder. That meant she’d held onto it in the hope that one day she’d pass it on to Si.
Si froze, certain she’d heard something downstairs. She listened. It was hard to hear anything up here.
It’s just the wind, she thought, trying to settle herself. After all, she didn’t know when she’d get another chance to look in here. She might not ever get that chance again.
That should have been more upsetting than it was. She wasn’t upset. She couldn’t help but think that her mother would have understood. Max had been good to Si. Her mother would appreciate that and want Si to help him now.
Guilt rose inside her. She should be out there looking for him. Instead she’d allowed herself to be blanketed by the happy memories stirred up by simple things, like an old blanket or the box of books from her childhood that stirred up powerful nostalgia.
She was just about to climb down when she heard something. She held her breath and listened. She’d left her door open and her backpack on her bed, she realised. If that was Graham back, he’d see them if he came upstairs. She crouched and eased herself through the hatch and onto the chair she’d stood on to get up there.
As soon as her feet hit the ground, she heard the noise again. It was far more obvious from down here.
It wasn’t Graham.
Someone was knocking on the door.
Si hurried to her bedroom, making her steps as light as possible. She tiptoed to her bed and climbed up on it, wincing when the mattress squeaked loudly. She peered out the window, not knowing what she was going to see.
There was nothing out there. No car in the driveway, no people standing around. Then again, she wouldn’t see anyone in the porch because it was recessed. She leant as close to the glass as she could, but she couldn’t see anything. Someone was definitely down there because they knocked again.
Was it a neighbour? She thought about it for a second and th
en shook her head. No. People around here tolerated Graham, but no-one particularly liked him. He thought he was better than everyone else and that rubbed people up the wrong way.
Was it Graham? It was possible he’d forgotten his keys. No, if it was him he’d have screamed horrible names at her by now. Nobody was speaking down there—she’d have heard them if they were.
She held her breath, wondering what to do. There was only one way out of the house and somebody was currently knocking on it. There was no back gate from the little yard at the back and the walls were topped with broken glass and barbed wire.
Si frowned as she eased herself down off the bed as quietly as possible. Instinct told her to move away from the window.
She wanted to close the door behind her, but she didn’t because it squeaked. She wished now that she’d oiled the hinges instead of ignoring them. She sat down on the landing, not daring to look down the stairs.
It was almost funny: she was desperate for Graham to launch into one of his rants. Anything to prove it was him and not someone who wanted to hurt her.
She was starting to feel very vulnerable.
She stood and moved into her mother’s bedroom. She really didn’t want to go in there, but she had no choice. Maybe she’d have to go out the back way. She looked out the window, half-expecting to see an army of people out there waiting to hurt her.
There wasn’t anyone out there. What she saw was confirmation that there was no way she was leaving through the back. She’d have to jump five feet from the window to the wall. Even if there wasn’t barbed wire on the top, she wouldn’t have risked it. The wall was too narrow. If she missed it or landed badly, she’d fall and break her legs. Now wasn’t the time for an injury like that. It could be deadly. She felt sick at the thought of it.
Fighting Darkness: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller (Fighting to Survive Book 2) Page 12