Flare

by Grzegorzek, Paul

  “She’s a tough kid, but she’s been through a lot. I think she’ll be alright though”.

  “Any idea what Lindsay is going to do with them?”

  She picked up her mug and blew on the steaming brew.

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is she’s going to do it quickly. There are already mutterings from people, and she needs to do something if she wants to stay in control”.

  “Yeah, but what?”

  “The way I see it she’s got two choices. The first is to send them out into the world without any supplies, let nature take its course”.

  “And the second?” I thought I already knew the answer but I had to ask.

  She shrugged and looked down at the table before meeting my eyes.

  “Well they can’t stay here, they don’t have the resources to spare. The only other option I can see is execution”.

  Chapter 52

  In the end it was done quietly.

  We stayed the night, a married couple making room for us in their corner of the barn so that all five of us slept almost nose to nose. The evening was taken up by Emily and I making statements, much as we would have done had we reported a crime before the flare, each page signed and a declaration made that we were telling the truth.

  “We have to observe the forms”, Lindsay had said when they were both finished, the paper disappearing into a tatty blue folder. “We may have slipped a little but we’re a long way from barbarism”.

  “I wish everyone else felt the same. Maybe we’d have a chance at rebuilding then”.

  She’d nodded at me and left, and we’d bedded down in the barn, only to be awakened just after dawn by Max, the farmer whose land it was.

  He put a finger to his lips as I woke, then motioned to Emily. I touched her shoulder and she woke instantly, then looked at Max and nodded. We both knew what was happening, there could be no other reason for being woken so early and in secret.

  I looked back at Melody and frowned, then leaned in to speak in Max’s ear.

  “I can’t leave her alone, she’ll panic if she wakes up and we’re not here”.

  He shook his head. “We’ll only be gone a few minutes, and my boy David is standing by the door. She cries out, he’ll be in here like a flash and he’s good with kids, don’t worry”.

  I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t see any other way around it, so we crept out as silently as possible, nodding to the young lad who stood in the shadows of the yard, his face hidden by the misty clouds that blocked the sun.

  It was much colder this morning, and as Max led us behind the barn and across the fields behind, tendrils of mist wrapped around our legs like the hands of the dead reaching out for us. It was an unusually macabre thought, but it suited my mood.

  We crossed two fields before several dark shapes rose out of the mist, coalescing into the standing forms of Lindsay and one of the officers we’d met at the barricade the day before, and the kneeling figures of the two men who had kidnapped Melody.

  Just the sight of them made me snarl, and I felt the shackles in my mind tremble.

  Lindsay and her colleague nodded at us, while the kneeling men looked up, silent. One look at my face told them all they needed to know, and as we slowed they returned their eyes to the muddy ground in front of them.

  Both were handcuffed, but now these cuffs were removed while Lindsay’s colleague covered them with a police-issue pistol held in one hand, while the other held, somewhat incongruously, a pillow.

  Keeping clear of the line of fire, Lindsay moved around the side of the men so that they could see her as she spoke.

  “You are here today to answer for your crimes. In a perfect world, you would be tried by a court in front of a jury of your peers, and then sentenced by a judge, but this is not a perfect world. Instead, I have to do what I can with the cards I’ve been dealt. You’ve been accused of murder, kidnapping and robbery. Do you have anything to say?”

  The men shared a glance, then the one who had held the knife to Melody’s throat shrugged.

  “Will it make a difference?”

  “Probably not”.

  “Then fuck you all”.

  Lindsay nodded and motioned for her colleague to step forward.

  “I’ve seen the evidence, as have three others picked at random from the camp, and all agree that you are, on the balance of probabilities, guilty of all the charges. There are two possible sentences, but I feel that if you are released, you will continue to prey on those weaker than you”.

  One of the men looked up, then spat at Lindsay’s boots.

  “If you’re gonna kill us, just fuckin kill us”.

  I’d expected them to beg, to plead for their lives, but instead they were meeting their fate with a rough dignity that annoyed me, as if they no longer wished to be part of this screwed up world. I wanted them to cry, to scream, to realise that what they had done was wrong, to admit that we were in the right.

  I even hoped for one brief second that it was all an act, that they would try to break free at the last second, and I imagined myself seizing the pistol from Emily’s waistband and shooting them both as they ran into the mist.

  Instead, the officer stepped up to the first, placing the pillow against the back of his head. He glanced at Lindsay who, face pale as the mist around her, nodded once.

  The sound of the body hitting the ground was louder than the retort of the pistol, muzzle buried as it was in the pillow. The smell of charred feathers and cordite filled the air, followed quickly by another smell as the dead man’s bowels released.

  Before the other could do more than blink, the pillow was moved to his head and the pistol pushed into it.

  He looked up at me just as the trigger was pulled, his eyes widening as the bullet tore through his skull and he slumped to the ground next to his friend.

  I felt strangely empty as I watched them lying there. I searched for some kind of feeling, remorse, relief, anger, guilt, but again there was none.

  Emily’s hand stole into mine and squeezed my fingers, making me look at her.

  “Are you ok?” She asked softly, as Lindsay led our silent procession back towards the buildings.

  I shrugged, unsure what answer to give.

  “I think so”, I said, keeping hold of her hand. “I just don’t know anymore”.

  She just nodded at that, pulling my arm around her shoulders and leaning into me as we walked back to the barn, leaving the dead where they had fallen.

  Chapter 53

  Breakfast was a subdued affair, partly due to the fact that Lindsay had shared with the camp the news Emily had given her about the radiation detectors.

  In my surprise at finding the Melody’s captors here, the radiation had all but slipped my mind, but it was all anyone here could talk about as we joined the many that squeezed into the kitchen for a bowl of lumpy porridge and a mug of coffee, with more queuing patiently outside.

  Melody was unusually subdued that morning, and had been since we’d come back to find her awake and sitting up, silent in the darkness but with tears glistening on her face. She refused to talk about it, however, so I left it alone and hoped that whatever was bothering her would come to light with time.

  Once we finished eating it was time to say our goodbyes. Emily and I were both keen to get an early start, wanting to get on the road and away from the gloom that overhung the farm.

  Lindsay stopped us in the yard, two full packs in her arms.

  “Take these”, she said without preamble, “food and drinking water, and a first aid kit. I hope we meet again one day”.

  I took the packs and stowed them in the car, then shook her hand. Emily and Melody did the same, then Emily asked if Lindsay had a road atlas and a pen.

  Lindsay sent one of the ever-present children to go and fetch them from her room, making small talk about the weather while we waited.

  When the boy ran up with the map and a red marker, Emily took the map and scanned the pages until she found Surrey, then
put a small red cross on the map and handed it to the police officer.

  “That’s where we are”, she said, “if things get too bad up here and you need somewhere to head for, come and find us. The farm is huge, even bigger than this one, although the land hasn’t been used for the last ten years or so. Oh, and keep the Landrover with our thanks”.

  Lindsay thanked her and shook her hand again, then waved us off as we got in the car and drove up the bumpy dirt track, Melody in the back on her own with a new pen one of the children had given her, already writing furiously in her diary.

  I sat in the front with Emily, silent as we drove out of the gate and waved to the guards, then pulled onto the roundabout and south onto the M6.

  “I’m going to try and work our way across country when we get past Birmingham”, she said after a few miles, “see if we can get onto the M1 and then go clockwise on the M25. I don’t fancy bumping into the Secretary’s men”.

  I nodded in agreement. “I’d better see if I’ve got any change for the Dartford toll”.

  It was a weak joke, but it brought a smile to Emily’s face.

  “Dad?” Melody looked up from her diary. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Go on”.

  She paused as if searching for the right words, her face deadly serious.

  “Those men are dead, aren’t they?”

  I exchanged a quick glance with Emily.

  “Yes darling, they are”.

  She paused again, looking down at her diary, then back up at me.

  “Am I a bad person because I’m pleased they’re dead?”

  I wished that I was in the back with her, able to put my arms around her. No eleven-year-old should have to ask that question, but I immediately understood how important it was that I answered it, and answered it well.

  “It’s never a nice thing when anyone dies”, I said, choosing my words carefully, “but sometimes, just sometimes, there are people so bad that if they carried on living they would make other people’s lives even worse. Those men were like that. If we’d let them go, they would have kept on hurting people, and that wouldn’t be fair on the people they hurt, so we had to do something that no one liked to stop them”.

  “You had to kill them?”

  I looked to Emily for help, but I could see from her face that she was as lost in the minefield as I was.

  “There wasn’t any other choice, love. But they hurt you, and Nana, and so it’s natural for you to be relieved that they can’t hurt you anymore. I’m not pleased that they’re dead, but I am pleased that they won’t hurt anyone else”.

  She thought about this for a long moment and then nodded as if she’d come to a decision.

  “That’s why I’m pleased too”, she said, and returned to her diary as calmly as if we’d been discussing the weather.

  Glancing out through the window, I looked up at the heavy grey clouds that threatened rain, wondering if they still contained radiation this far south. I couldn’t be sure, I was no expert after all, but it did make me wonder about the other nuclear power stations dotted across the country, and suddenly wished for a working Geiger counter.

  The weather had definitely turned, the long dry spell shattered overnight as storm clouds continued to build. It made me worry about the future, about how we would survive when the cold storms of winter hit, but then I reminded myself that humanity had survived for thousands of years before electricity, and no doubt would survive for thousands more even if we never clawed back what we’d lost.

  The rain finally began to fall as morning turned to afternoon, a light spattering at first but quickly intensifying to the point where the wipers struggled to keep the windscreen clear. It rattled off the room like a thousand crazed drummers, adding to the noise of the half-century old engine until I could barely hear myself think.

  We’d passed Birmingham late in the morning, a few of its taller buildings just visible through the rain-smeared windows, and when we reached the M42 Emily turned off and drove confidently along smaller roads that had me lost within minutes.

  We finally came out on the M1 just above Luton, the road here often half-blocked with abandoned vehicles, many starting to show wear from the elements after a week or more in the open.

  We were drawing close to the M25 when Emily tapped the fuel gauge and looked over at me.

  “We’re running low”, she said with a grimace. “It might run like a dream but it drinks fuel”.

  I waved a hand at the cars we were passing.

  “Take your pick”.

  She pulled over near a tangle of cars and we got out, having no choice but to risk the rain.

  “We should be ok this far south”, Emily said dubiously, but just in case we made Melody stay in the car despite her protests.

  All of the cars had been locked, as if the drivers expected to be able to return for them, but the windows were easy enough to smash with screwdrivers from the small toolkit we’d found in the boot of the Traveller.

  Although the central locking systems were fried, we quickly developed a simple method of smashing a window, unlocking the driver’s door and then climbing in to pull down the back seat and access the boot that way, searching for hose or tubing that we could use to syphon petrol from the tanks.

  In the end Emily gave up looking, instead lifting a bonnet and ripping a length of tubing from the engine. I produced an empty petrol can from the boot of another car, and then sucked on the end of the tube that she had put into a petrol tank, spitting out the fuel when it rushed into my mouth and made me gag.

  We filled the can and transferred it to the Traveller several times, then filled the can once more and put it in the boot where it filled the car with the headache-inducing smell of petrol.

  We climbed back in and Emily started the engine while I turned to Melody.

  “You ok?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “Yes, but I’m bored now”.

  “I know”, I said as we pulled away, “but it shouldn’t be too long now”.

  Emily glanced back over her shoulder. “Two hours, I think, maybe three because we’re going the long way around. Can you last that long? We can play a game if you like?”

  Melody nodded. “Ok, what should we play?”

  Emily smiled. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s each think of the thing we miss the most from before the flare. I’ll go first. Ice cream. Mint chocolate chip ice cream with marshmallows on top. Malcolm?”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Easy. Skinny lattes with vanilla. Melody, how about you?”

  She said nothing for a moment and I looked back to see tears tracking their way down her cheeks.

  “My mum”, she said quietly, “I miss my mum most”.

  For the next hour, we travelled in silence.

  Chapter 54

  We’d just passed the turnoff for Romford when I spotted something moving to the side of the road some way ahead.

  “Do you see that?” I pointed towards it, unsure through the driving rain what it might be.

  “What the hell?” Emily peered through the windscreen.

  “Are they people?” Melody asked as she leaned over my shoulder to get a better look.

  As we drew closer I saw that they were indeed people, hundreds of them walking in a huddle across a field to the side of the road, while dozens appeared to be harnessed to the front of trucks that were being pulled with much difficulty through the wet mud towards the motorway.

  As we drove closer, more and more people appeared over the brow of the hill, those at the rear trudging in the churned-up much of those at the front.

  “Where are they coming from?” Melody asked me, but I could only shrug.

  “No idea, but we want to get past before they reach the road. I don’t like our chances if they get in front of us”.

  Even as I spoke, those at the front of the mass were pointing at us, some waving their arms while others began to run clumsily through the mud towards the motorway.

  I watched in amazement a
s yet more people came over the hill, thousands of weary travellers carrying loads on their backs as they walked, or pulling trucks and trailers piled high with belongings.

  “Can we go any faster?” I asked Emily, and the engine strained as she put her foot to the floor, the speedo creaking up to a hairsbreadth over seventy and vibrating as if caught in a gale.

  “That’s all we’ve got”, she said, eyes fixed on the road ahead to spot the abandoned cars that flashed out of the rain with almost no warning. “Melody, sit down and put your seatbelt on please”.

  Melody did as she was told and I reached for my own seatbelt, pulling it across and clicking it in place.

  “Take this”, Emily said, passing me the pistol with one hand, “but don’t use it unless you have to, there’s only twelve rounds in it”.

  I took it awkwardly, the grip cold in my hand.

  “Do you think it’ll come to that?”

  “I don’t know, but better it doesn’t and you’re ready than the other way around”.

  The front edge of the crowd had reached the hard shoulder now, men, women and a few children running out into the road as if they could stop us with sheer weight of numbers. I could see their faces now, hungry, desperate, eager for whatever we might have, including our car.

  I wound the window down with a shaking hand and raised the pistol, hoping those closest to us would see it and pull back, but they kept coming.

  Emily pulled into the outside lane, as close to the central reservation as she dared, her wing mirror mere centimetres away from the concrete barrier. Even then it seemed as though it wouldn’t be enough as hundreds of people spilled out onto the road, some shouting while others just ran at us.

  I spared a glance for Melody, strapped into her seat but nose pressed up against the glass, staring into the eyes of those that would take everything she had without stopping to think, and I swore that that would never happen.

  Raising the pistol, I aimed at a man who was running at an angle, trying to get in front of us, and pulled the trigger.

  The boom was shockingly loud inside the car, smoke filling the air with the stench of cordite. The man I’d fired at dropped, but then got to his feet again and checked himself with both hands, patting his body up and down with a look of relief on his face.