Tiredness made them complacent. It made Lexi simply too uncaring to enforce discipline and maintain their ordered march in wary single file. Soon, all four were trudging side by side down the road as though the prospect of meeting any threat were an inescapable inevitability.
As this cloud of unawareness descended on them, bizarrely their spirits lifted.
“What do you think happened to everyone?” asked Melissa to nobody in particular.
“I don’t know,” replied Chris, “but we’ve probably pissed enough people off to warrant a bit of bad karma.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” interjected Paul, but the force of his words possessed no real gravity. “I mean, we’ve been the dominant ones since this all started, so there was bound to be someone bigger than us out there. Pissing about in a helicopter probably didn’t help either,” he finished patiently.
They absorbed this in silence, their minds opening up to the concept of their potential arrogance.
“How would the helicopter make us worse?” asked Melissa, genuinely confused by his emerging theory.
“It’s like those sci-fi programmes,” he explained. “You know, when aliens attack the earth because we’ve made some big leap in technology. Like we were saying that we were ready for the next level or something.”
Lexi involuntarily scoffed at the mention of aliens and planetary invasions, which didn’t gain her any favour with Chris.
“So you felt we were safe then?” he asked her rhetorically. “You think that just because we thought we were doing the right thing that others would just be like ‘hey, they’re good guys so let’s just leave them alone and do our own thing’?”
She thought about that. “No,” she said carefully, “that’s not what I’m saying. In fact, I’m starting to agree with you.”
The other three exchanged a look.
“How’s that then?” Paul asked her.
“I mean that we got comfortable,” she said, a small injection of passion entering her words. “We probably were arrogant, and we probably all thought that because we’d survived everything so far that we were too big to take down. Look at the facts: everyone who has come at us has lost. Badly. We’ve wiped out three other groups and left literally no survivors… Did they think they deserved that?”
An awkward silence held them all for another hundred yards of walking.
“We didn’t even have any defences in place on the farm,” said Chris, “and Dan’s ‘nobody holds a gun except who I choose’ was never questioned. Did you notice that everyone who left was carrying one? If we’d all had training and everyone was armed, then we could have had better security and whoever it was who took away our home might not have had such an easy time of it. No; he spent all his time with his dog and his woman and that scary-as-shit kid he turned into a killer.”
At the growing criticism of Dan, Lexi tensed.
Her pride stung by the abuse of his rules and protocols, she turned on the farmer and looked him in the eye, ready to fly into a staunch defence of the man and everything he had done for them.
But the words deserted her, just as Dan had.
Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she fought with herself and her loyalties. Those loyalties were being rigorously tested now, and she found that when the shine of Dan’s charismatic leadership had worn off, then maybe, just maybe, she agreed with what Chris was trying to say.
Without a word, she turned back and carried on walking.
She remained about ten steps ahead of the others as they continued the muttered conversation. Her fuming anger at herself, at Chris, at Dan and at whoever had taken away their home clouded her senses.
Those senses, even when tired, would have easily detected the sound of others talking long before it was too late.
From the hedgerow ahead of her emerged two men carrying shotguns, making her freeze and turn to look behind her.
Another two men there, similarly armed, were advancing on the others who were still lost in conversation. She spun back and raised her rifle as she shouted a warning for them to stay back.
“Whoa! Easy there!” said a voice from her right side. “No harm intended, boys; put your guns down now.”
Lexi fought to control her breathing as she switched aim between the multiple targets.
The man who spoke walked towards her, remaining at an unthreatening distance as he spoke.
“We heard that engine coming miles away,” he said kindly as he held his huge hands wide in a gesture of openness. “I’ve met people dressed like you two before, only they were in a better state than you are, I dare say.”
So much competing information swam around in Lexi’s brain that it was hard to concentrate and get everything in order. Before she could formulate any plan, the man spoke again.
“Come on, you look like you could do with a cup of tea.”
Up close, she could see he was a big man, but his soft charm hid that fact unless you cared to look closely. He had kind eyes, a wide smile and huge hands. She thought he looked like someone she could trust. She wanted to trust him. She wanted to trust anyone right then, if only to feel safe again.
She lowered her rifle and stood straight, trying to regain her dignity despite being filthy with greasy hair and very aware of her own odour.
“Lexi,” she introduced herself, then nodded to the other three and named them in turn.
The smiling man tentatively reached out a large hand to shake hers. She took it, her own small hand being instantly engulfed in a powerful grip which made her think that the rough, calloused brown skin around her own could do some real damage if he chose to do so.
The broad smile seemed very genuine and Lexi felt a wave of emotion overcome her, almost as though they had been saved. Tears pricked her eyes at the relief and exhaustion.
“Tea?” the big man said once more, relieving the awkward tension with the most British of subject changes.
They followed him a short distance down the road until they met up with others around a Land Rover. As the vehicle came fully into sight, Lexi’s eyes grew wide with shock. The extra tank on the roof rack and the bullet score mark above the windscreen all seemed so familiar.
That shock turned to fear, and that fear in turn transformed into rage.
Too close to the big man to step back and raise her rifle, she instead wrapped her left arm around his neck and whipped the Glock from the holster on her vest. Yanking his head back as far as she could given the David and Goliath size difference between them, she pressed the muzzle into the side of his head.
“Where did you get that car?” she screamed at him. “Where did you get it?”
Confusion reigned among everyone else. Paul raised his own gun, prompting Chris and Melissa to follow suit, but they were surrounded by the rest of the group with shotguns. Nobody really knew what to do, and an awkward stalemate hung heavy for a few seconds.
The big man was calm and could easily have stood up straight and overpowered the girl. Only he didn’t, because the shock and her reaction was his fault. He blamed himself for not acting on his instincts that he knew where these people had come from. As soon as she recognised the Land Rover, he knew who she was. Where she had come from.
And he knew that their mutual friend had given him the vehicle but she didn’t, not yet.
Remaining very still, he answered her with a slow and clear response.
“Dan gave it to me,” he said.
She froze, slowly absorbing the information into her fatigued and sleep-deprived brain. Gently, she relaxed the ineffective grip on his neck and moved the gun away. Holding it pointed towards the ground, she stepped back and allowed the man she had attacked to stand tall once more.
Rubbing his neck where she had hauled him down, he smiled again, waving his comrades away with a subtle gesture. Guns were lowered and everyone’s personal space returned to an uninvaded state.
“Like I said earlier,” he said with an open grin, “I’ve met people dress
ed like you before. That’s where I got the truck, after I helped them.”
A sob escaped Lexi’s mouth, and it was quickly stifled. The shock and relief of knowing Dan and the others had been here, had met this man, overtook her emotions. She suddenly felt so very tired.
“You helped them?” she asked through tear-blurred eyes.
“We helped each other, more like,” he answered. “They didn’t need this any more so I inherited it. Allow me to start again. I’m Simon, and last time I saw your friends, they were way out to sea.”
THE RAGE TO OVERCOME
Dan had driven hard away from the site of their attempted ambush, eyes moving as though they were plugged into the mains looking for other threats and barking orders to the others in the car and over the radio.
After a few miles, to be sure they weren’t being directly pursued, he called a stop away from the main road and posted Mitch and Adam to watch their rear after quickly checking on them. The only casualty was a ventilated windscreen on the Land Rover. The potential of losing a vehicle this early on was a blow, but going back for another was now out of the question.
Calling the others in, he explained what had happened. He didn’t realise it then, but the hype he still felt from the adrenaline was pouring out of him as pure anger. Everyone present was made to feel that they were in some way responsible for what had happened, as though they were all collectively to blame, when in fact he blamed none of them. He blamed the hideous state of humanity. He blamed those people for attacking them when there was no sensible reason to do it. He was angry that people shot first and looted later, instead of having a simple conversation or offering trade.
He was appalled at the extreme lack of good manners.
His words were harsh and full of rage; his voice was raised but at the same time his hands shook from fear and adrenaline and his heart beat so hard that he could hear his own pulse in his ears. As his anger at the behaviour of other humans abated, he saw his most faithful follower sliding away from the group wearing a look like he’d left a steaming present on his master’s new carpet.
Seeing his dog afraid made him stop. He was making others feel afraid too. They should be afraid, he thought, just not afraid of him. Dan was doing this all wrong.
Clicking his fingers and calling Ash to him, he bent down to fuss the huge animal and reassure him that it was OK now.
Standing up again, he began the harder task of reassuring his human followers that it was going to be OK for them too.
“We have a hard day driving ahead of us now,” he said to the group, more softly now, “but we need to put as much space between us and here as we can. Everyone take a break while we look at the maps, but just stay close to the vehicles!”
Catching Leah’s eye, he walked towards where she had laid the map out on the bonnet of a long-deceased car.
“Head back west, go down through Italy,” she said simply. Marie, Neil Jimmy and Jack joined them, and Leah repeated her stance on their navigation.
“Best way,” replied Neil. “If we’re meeting people like that in Germany and the last lot in Belgium, then I doubt we’ll find a better reception when we hit the Gaza strip, do you?”
Agreement rippled through the small assembly. For want of a better plan which didn’t involve fighting their way across a thousand miles, they decided to head back in the general direction they had come from.
Dan’s anger was still running high, so he took himself away for a solitary cigarette. Now convinced of his own innocence in the recent bad mood, Ash dutifully followed to lope at his flank, nose to the ground and ears up. Breathing heavily to purge the last of the fear-induced chemicals from his body, he concentrated on lowering his heart rate and returning to a sense of balance.
Healthy balance was not something Dan experienced often nowadays. In fact, a healthy state of mind was now something as fleeting as a burst of fear or anger had been in the past. He was tired, so unbelievably emotionally and physically exhausted that he could just curl up where he was and cry.
Only he couldn’t do that any more. As much as he wanted to lie down in the foetal position and wait for all the bad things to pass him by, he simply couldn’t afford the delay. People’s lives depended on him, including the ones who meant the most to him. His frustration at the world threatened his eyes with tears, not of sadness, but of anguish at the futility of the world. A footfall behind him made him spin around and place an instinctive hand on his carbine.
Leah had got close before he heard her, not intentionally as she knew better than to creep up on an armed man who lived on the edge, but because of her ingrained sense of stealth.
“Steady,” she said in a slightly mocking impression of him. The levity was enough to bring him down from the last step of emotional reaction and articulate how he felt.
“What the hell was all that about?” he asked her.
She opened her mouth to speak, then considered the discussion she had recently with Emma about people being rhetorical. She closed her mouth again, guessing rightly that Dan hadn’t finished.
“I mean, what did they want with us? Supplies? Weapons? Why couldn’t they just walk up and ask us?” He ranted on, cursing the world in general and lamenting that conflict was as natural to the human race as breathing. “We’re just destined to destroy each other, I reckon,” he said glumly.
Leah guessed he had finished now. She knew that he liked to get on his soapbox and say things like this from time to time, and she had learned to let it run. Her mind drifted off a little as she pondered if he spent his downtime making up these speeches.
Stepping closer, she placed a hand on his shoulder. There was no awkwardness between them, which was strange as neither were emotionally open people, and Dan raised his eyes to meet hers.
“Believe me when I say this, because I love you, but you seriously need to man up.” A sarcastic smirk tickled the corner of her mouth as she clearly wanted to laugh at her own humour.
Dan looked at her, burning an intense gaze through her until she could no longer take it and burst out laughing. He laughed with her and stood to hug her.
“Point taken, you little shit,” he said warmly, then turned and walked back towards the vehicles. “And I love you too. Just don’t go thinking I’m increasing your pocket money or letting you stay up late,” he said over his shoulder as he paced away.
Leah’s smile remained as she watched him go. She knew she had, or at least used to have, a father. Her mum used to talk about him every so often, just not very nicely. She had never actually known her own dad, not properly anyway, and if she really concentrated, she could only just recall what he looked like.
Nothing like Dan. She wondered again what he had been like before, and if her mum had met him whether he could’ve become her dad for real.
“Pointless thought,” she said to herself wistfully, “it is what it is.” And she was happy with that. She had a dad now and a hairy brother who drooled in the car and was known for his tendency to bite. She had a mum of sorts. Soon she would have a younger brother or sister too.
Then the realisation of that hit her. She steeled herself and walked back to the group, back to the mission, and back to her dysfunctional family.
“Woman up,” she muttered to herself as she put her game face back on.
After all, she had a reputation to uphold.
PLAN B
“Well, it’s probably more of a plan Y by now,” retorted Mitch as Dan circled their Land Rover and assessed the damage.
“You know what I mean,” Dan said distractedly.
He saw the four crazed bullet holes dotted across the windscreen in a curving arc, marvelling at their luck that nobody was hurt. Not strictly true, as both Adam and Mitch had suffered cuts to their hands and faces from the glass. The four bullets which had entered the cab had harmlessly impacted the bags and boxes stacked behind the front seats and he saw how one had gouged a piece off the passenger side head restraint and exposed the uncomfortably cheap, off
-beige foam stuffing.
As he checked the rest of the vehicle and saw numerous scrapes where rounds had ricocheted off the metal and slashed away the green paint, Mitch began to conduct repairs.
Ripping off pieces of duct tape, Mitch began to seal the holes in the glass before moving on to wrap the seat and shut in the escaping foam. He saw Dan’s amused look and explained.
“Land Rovers: they go anywhere and you can fix most things with duct tape,” he said with a smile. “Well, for a while anyway.”
Dan chuckled. “OK, so what’s plan Y or whatever we’ve got to if it dies on us?” he asked.
“Switch the supplies into the big wagon and we go on top of the other vehicles as lookouts?” Mitch replied.
“Sounds cold,” Dan answered, “and uncomfortable.”
Mitch merely shrugged away the concepts as insignificant.
Stepping closer, Dan asked him a question in a hushed tone. “How did your boy do?” he muttered.
“Good enough,” came the quiet answer. “He had to change his trousers, but that’s not uncommon as you know. Didn’t you piss your pants in your first contact?” Mitch asked Dan innocently.
“As a matter of fact, I did. Some forgotten village in the Balkans in the pitch-black. Didn’t know what the hell was going on!” he answered quietly with a private smile. “What about you?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Mitch said with a wide grin. “No chance mate!”
Annoyed and amused by being duped, Dan gave him a single-worded insult in good humour and walked away to find Adam and reassure him.
As he walked, he tried to remember the first post-contact pep talk he had received, delivered by a sergeant major with an impressive growth of big pork chop sideburns. He’d never forget those chops: as hilarious as they were to look at, the man wearing them was not someone you would laugh at. Or in front of, or anywhere there was a chance he could hear you. “They shoot at us and we shoot at them, lad,” barked the fierce, loud voice from the depths of his memory. “In the end we win, because we’re better. If you end up dead, then you’ll know you weren’t good enough.”
Sanctuary: After It Happened Book 5 Page 2