After The End (Book 1): The Furious Four

by Rendle, Samantha

  Everyone ignores Poppy’s loud breath of relief as they approach Beth and Gabriel on the side of the motorway. Beth is digging into a tin of peaches, not in a very dignified manner, and Gabriel sits next to her on the grass. Their bikes lean against the partition. Kerry and Preston manoeuvre their bikes around the metal fence, careful not to tip the trailers, and join them on the grass, followed by the others.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Kerry asks, taking small sips from a bottle of water before passing it to Preston, who slugs the rest back.

  ‘I need to get back to Andrea,’ Steve announces, gratefully accepting a bottle.

  ‘Daddy is on his way here from Brighton,’ says Poppy, waving her phone in evidence. ‘He said he’s about half an hour away.’

  ‘I don’t think her question extended to you,’ says Gabriel hotly, and Preston laughs.

  ‘What about us?’ Kerry prompts, looking among her three companions.

  ‘We know a place,’ says Preston, ‘just for the night.’

  ‘Before we go, uh, house hunting,’ adds Beth resignedly. She offers Gabriel her tin. ‘Do these peaches taste odd to you?’

  Gabriel pops a segment into his mouth, shrugging. ‘No. Is the date okay?’

  ‘I’m sorry this happened to you, Beth,’ Steve says solemnly, gesturing behind him. ‘I hope the road ahead isn’t too hard for you, but if anyone can endure, it’s you lot.’

  Beth nods. She digs around in her bag, producing a carrier bag and handing it to Steve. He shoots her a grateful smile before peering into the carrier. He frowns and takes something out, shows it to her.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, laughing nervously. ‘That’s, uh, for the cat.’

  She takes the flea treatment back from him and stuffs it into her rucksack. For a moment the group falls silent, looking around the empty motorway, sadness like a presence around them. Steve claps his hands together, as if to dispel the tension.

  ‘I’ll be off, then,’ he announces. ‘Thank you for this, both of you. I can’t say how sorry I am for what it’s cost you, but it’s given me and Andrea so much.’

  ‘That really warms my heart, Steve,’ says Preston dryly.

  ‘We should get going too,’ Beth agrees, getting to her feet and slapping mud off the back of her jeans, ‘while we have plenty of daylight ahead of us.’

  With a parting wave Steve is off, carrying the medicine in one hand and his blade in the other. They watch his silhouette shrink against the sunlight before Gabriel gets up off the ground, preparing to leave too.

  Kerry glances at Basil and Poppy, who perch shivering on the metal partition, looking left and right for any sign of a car. Poppy’s hair remains pristine; as if she’d never slept in a droughty tree house just a few hours ago, while Basil’s flaps in the wind. He catches Kerry’s eye with a pleading look.

  ‘What about them?’ Kerry asks, steeling herself for an argument with Preston.

  ‘Good riddance,’ he says predictably. ‘They’re lucky we let them live.’

  ‘We can’t just leave them,’ Kerry appeals to Beth.

  Beth studies Gabriel, chewing on her lower lip, and Kerry notices Preston glancing at Beth as she does so. A strange thought rises in her, but she pushes it down, uncomfortable at the notion. Finally Beth shrugs.

  ‘Her dad did us a favour,’ she declares, ‘and it’s only fair we repay him.’

  ‘We did repay him,’ snaps Preston. ‘We gave him all our money!’

  ‘People like us don’t need money,’ Beth points out. ‘Call it moral repayment.’

  ‘I call it bullshit!’

  Even so, Preston hangs about, lighting a cigarette and inching away from the rest of the group. Kerry considers sitting with him, but she doesn’t find him as cute or agreeable as Basil, so she stays. Beth and Gabriel, however, owe them no such courtesy, and they follow Preston. Poppy’s phone battery dies and she starts to cry.

  While Basil comforts his girlfriend, Kerry paces back and forth. She tries not to think about saying goodbye to this stranger she wishes was unattached. She tries not to think about the fact that she’s never been kissed, and she probably never will be. Forget the S word. The thought that she used to believe in love and destiny is laughable to her now.

  In what seems like no time at all, a black car with a yellow plate pulls up and Poppy leaps to her feet, sobbing hysterically. Basil shoots Kerry an apologetic look and follows his girlfriend to the car, greeting the driver. Kerry scuffs her feet on the ground as he leaves, but just as quickly he returns.

  ‘I know it’s probably a long shot,’ he says hastily, ‘but do you have a pen and paper?’

  Frowning, Kerry digs in Gabriel’s bag and produces the wall calendar and a marker. Basil beams and uncaps the pen, scrawling a string of numbers on the back.

  ‘I never told you what I do for work, did I?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ says Kerry, ‘you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I’m a charity worker of sorts,’ he explains, handing the pen and calendar back. ‘It’s off the books, and I charge, but I help Outlanders sometimes. I appreciate you letting us stay with you last night, so if ever you need any help, give me a call.’

  ‘Sounds like a tough business,’ says Kerry, repacking the things. ‘Well, thanks, Basil.’

  Silently, the Furious Four watch Basil climb into the taxi and the taxi drives away. Kerry can feel the heaviness, like the atmosphere pushing down on their shoulders, as they shoulder their bags and mount their bikes. She tries to ignore the feeling that this is the end of something, and that she can’t picture a new beginning.

  Preston and Beth lead the way, trailers speeding after their bikes, and Kerry concentrates on pedalling behind them. She watches Ratbag dig his claws into the roof of Preston’s trailer, his fur swaying in the breeze. Gabriel cycles next to her, weaving in and out of the lines in the road, seemingly unbothered by the change in routine. Maybe he’s excited, maybe this is all a big adventure for him. Maybe that’s the right attitude to have.

  They cycle for under an hour, to Kerry’s surprise – she fully expected to be cycling for the rest of the day – stopping at a petrol station, which is home to a rusty old car and, by the look of it, rats. Kerry slows to a stop next to Preston, her nose wrinkling in disgust. A mug stands in the shop’s doorway like a waiting mother or a nosy neighbour.

  It’s just for the night, she reminds herself as she follows the others inside.

  Sunlight streams through the large front windows, illuminating all the smashed glass on the floor. A few shelves lie on their sides and a mouldy curtain provides a small haven from the sea of glass on the ground. There’s even a toilet, though it probably hasn’t flushed in years. Kerry leans her bike against a wall, unable to help feeling depressed at the sight of the place. The grubby curtain may work as a rug to sit on, but four people will not fit on that at night. She imagines plucking shards of glass from her back when she wakes up the next day.

  ‘Maybe we should keep cycling,’ she says doubtfully, toeing a crusty patch on the curtain. ‘This place is grim.’

  For some reason looking uncomfortable, Beth pulls Kerry away from the curtain, shaking her head slightly. Gabriel prowls around, curious, but doesn’t seem to come up with any helpful discoveries. Ratbag sleeps on top of his trailer, grateful to have stopped cycling, and Preston sets about moving shelves, barricading the door. Resigned, Kerry dumps her bag and moves to help him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she hears Beth ask Gabriel.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replies, moving to sit on the floor curtain, but Beth pulls him up before he can. ‘I’m just glad you came back. I’m sure the whole losing the Sanctuary thing will hit me tomorrow or something.’ He pauses. ‘You look nice without your glasses, Mum.’

  ‘What’s she got against that curtain,’ Kerry mutters, ‘despite the mould, I mean?’

  Preston laughs. ‘Ask her, I dare you.’

  ‘We need to find something to sleep on,’ Beth declares, kicking the curtain aside, ‘or at least f
ind a way to shift this glass.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the crusty curtain?’ Gabriel asks.

  ‘The crust,’ says Preston, bursting out laughing once more.

  Beth shoots him a withering look. ‘There must be something else, something cleaner. I don’t want to lay our only sleeping bags in this disgusting place.’

  With a final heave, Kerry and Preston collapse one more shelf against the stack barring the door, and Kerry claps the dust off her hands. She looks inquisitively at Beth, but Beth pretends not to see. She’s definitely acting strange.

  ‘Well,’ says Preston, sitting on the counter above the battered till, ‘we’re not going back out there until morning now, Bethany, unless you want to shift the shelves yourself. So I suggest you get creative.’

  ‘Home, sweet home,’ mutters Kerry.

  Bruises and Boozes

  ‘Hi, this is Desmond. I can’t come to the phone right now but if you leave a message I’ll get right back to-’

  Beth screamed through gritted teeth and tossed her phone as hard as she could onto the bed. Tears pooled in her eyes and she shoved her glasses aside to swipe them away. Out the window, she could see Kerry playing with Gabriel in the beer garden, and Preston smoking and nursing a drink a short distance away. The cat skulked around the bushes. She could picture Desmond down there, scolding Preston for smoking so close to his precious son, or laughing as Kerry sneezed and made Gabriel jump.

  He should be here, she thought, but as soon as the words formed in her mind she felt guilty. Of course Des wanted to be here, he was just stuck in another country with no way back. She imagined every single flight into the country had been cancelled; no one wanted the ghastly virus that brought down cities in a matter of days. Of course, it may well have been too late for that. Poor Desmond, he must’ve been fretting about his little family, stranded with nowhere to go. But why wasn’t he answering his phone?

  Her parents had disappeared off the radar too. She hadn’t heard a peep from them since meeting Preston and Kerry in the pharmacy. She half-heartedly alternated calling their phones each day, but she believed them to be dead.

  For a few minutes she allowed herself to cry, to feel the desperation of her situation, the fear of spending so many days with someone who was clearly mentally damaged, the weight of responsibility she now felt in keeping Gabriel not only healthy but also alive, and the sorrow that she was orphaned at sixteen. She missed Desmond so much she could feel his absence in her chest.

  A sob died in her throat as knuckles rapped on the door. Mortification swept through her and her stomach dropped; had someone heard her sobbing like a lunatic? Sheepish, she shuffled to the door and opened it a crack. Steve, the owner, peered at her, a gentle smile on his face. She opened her mouth to apologise for the noise, but he cut across her.

  ‘I’ve got hot chocolate,’ he declared, his eyes twinkling. ‘May I join you?’

  Wordlessly, Beth nodded and swung the door open, hurrying to clear the used tissues off her bed and the window seat, making plenty of room for him. He set the tray down on the window seat and sat on the bed beside it, patting the space next to him. Beth sat, toying with a blue dreadlock and sniffling. She was aware of the scruffy, unmade bed on the other side of the room, but Steve seemed to think nothing of it.

  For a moment they sat on the bed and gazed out the window at the smiling faces of her son and his new friend. Gabriel had started to show signs of crawling, already mastering the position but still shaky when it came to travelling. Beth wished Desmond was here to see.

  ‘Such a handsome little boy,’ said Steve fondly. ‘He takes after his mum.’

  Beth shot him a watery smile and shook her head. ‘He’s the image of his dad. Darker skin, but he’s Des all over.’

  In an attempt to conceal her quivering lip, Beth reached for her hot chocolate and deposited it in her lap, cupping her hands around it. Steve looked at her, his expression sympathetic, and reached for his own drink.

  ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’ he offered, raising the mug to his lips.

  Beth shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Start with how you’re feeling,’ he suggested, ‘and then tell me why.’

  ‘Well, I feel,’ she began with a strangled laugh, ‘uh, hopeless, alone, afraid, useless... Like the old Beth is damaged beyond repair and I need to completely rethink who I am.’

  Steve nodded, sipping his drink and waiting for her to continue.

  ‘My boyfriend – Gabriel’s dad – is stranded in Switzerland and not answering his phone,’ she whispered, ‘and I’m scared we’ll never see him again. My parents are most likely dead because they haven’t even tried to contact me. I’m following this guy around and I’m pretty sure he’s, like, evil.’

  ‘Evil,’ Steve repeated.

  ‘The first time I met him he shot someone,’ she said, casting a quick glance out the window to check he hadn’t come to eavesdrop, ‘and, like, he didn’t even think twice. He drags this girl around with him but he refuses to acknowledge her. He has these terrible mood swings that actually make me fear for my life...’

  ‘Maybe he’s just misunderstood,’ Steve suggested. ‘That’s how he seems to me.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Beth agreed. ‘He did save our lives by shooting that person... I’m not even sure she was a person anymore, anyway.’

  Sighing heavily, she lifted her drink to her lips and took a gentle sip. It was warm and sweet, not quite as good as Desmond’s dad’s famous hot chocolate (he’d melt an entire bar of Dairy Milk into a mug and mix it with warm milk, with whipped cream and a chocolate sprinkles on the top), but enough to make her relax a notch. She sighed once more and took off her glasses, which had begun to steam up.

  ‘Thank you,’ she told Steve.

  ‘You’re welcome, darling,’ he said warmly, resting a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Not just for the drink,’ she said, ‘for letting us stay here too. I don’t want to take it for granted, but I think Preston is the sort to. So if there’s anything I can do to repay you, to earn my keep...’

  Steve waved the matter away. ‘Nonsense, you don’t have to-’

  ‘I want to,’ she insisted. ‘If there are any jobs around here I can do, or if you need an extra hand with something, please don’t hesitate to ask me.’

  ‘Thank you, Beth,’ he said warmly. ‘I tell you, if I was this boyfriend of yours I’d be doing everything in my power to return to a girl like you.’

  Returning the empty mugs to the tray, Steve bustled out of the room. Beth watched him go, feeling marginally better. Maybe she’d feel less useless if she helped out around the inn. Maybe she’d feel less smothered by the constant presence of a child who needed her. She hadn’t told Steve, but this was weighing on her heavier than everything else: sometimes she felt like her son was a burden. It was common, post-natal depression, her doctor had told her, but her doctor hadn’t known the full truth. No one did, least of all Desmond.

  The horrible truth was that she’d almost murdered Gabriel. When he was a little blip inside her, she’d been fully prepared to abort him. She was too young to have a child, she thought, and Des wouldn’t want one; he was at uni. She’d approached him, asked him to go with her, and he’d told her to keep it. He’d lit up like sunlight peeking out from behind a cloud at the mention of a baby. The worst part was, when she was at her lowest, Beth wondered what her real motives had been for keeping the baby. Did she keep him because she wanted to, or because she wanted something to tie her tighter to Desmond?

  She’d never regretted Gabriel, of course she hadn’t. As soon as she saw his photograph at the first ultrasound, she’d fallen in love with him. When he was born, he was her prized possession, her angel. Maybe that was why she felt so awful now; if she hadn’t been so insecure in her relationship with an older boy, the love of her life wouldn’t have existed. It was a frightening thought.

  Pushing the thought aside, Beth left the room and joined the others i
n the beer garden, where Gabriel was swaying dangerously on his hands and knees. Kerry had backed away from him slightly, encouraging him to crawl to her. He looked determined yet uncertain, while a few metres away Preston looked bored.

  ‘Come on,’ Kerry cooed happily, her arms spread wide, ‘come to Kerry.’

  Gabriel squealed and pitched forward, and Kerry reached out to catch him, giggling. Gabriel babbled an apology, something that likely meant, no crawling today. He’d fully recovered from his cold now, and he was as happy as he’d ever been, especially happy now they’d left that awful cellar.

  Watching them with apparent disinterest, Preston swirled his drink around in its glass. Beth sat down next to him, earning a steely glance, but she ignored him. It was nice to sit back and let someone else watch the baby for a while, even if that someone was Preston. After what she’d witnessed a few days ago she doubted he’d hurt him. It seemed all Preston wanted to do was hurt himself.

  ‘Are we staying here?’ Beth asked Preston.

  He shrugged. ‘I’m staying here until I get bored, or until they start charging me for drinks – whatever comes first.’

  ‘It’s nice here,’ she said, taking off her glasses to clean them. ‘I like the family.’

  ‘I don’t get on with people,’ grunted Preston.

  ‘Imagine that,’ said Beth. ‘Hey, do you think they’d let me have a WKD?’

  ‘If you order WKD, don’t expect to sit next to me.’

  ‘Well, what are you drinking?’

  ‘Whisky,’ he muttered, handing it to her. She took a sip and made a face, returning it to him. ‘You’re such a girl.’