The Darkening Days of John Mann

by Charles Barrow



  The Darkening Days of John Mann

  Part 2 of All The Days of John Mann

  By Charles Barrow

  Published by Martin C. Payne

  Copyright 2014 Charles Barrow

  Other Titles by Charles Barrow

  The Stolen Days of John Mann

  Acknowledgements

  With love and thanks to Jess, Jane, Antony, Claire, and Andrew for their input and encouragement.

  Original cover art and design by Jess Davies.

  Table of Contents

  The Darkening Days of John Mann

  Excerpt from John Mann: At Day's End

  About Charles Barrow

  Connect With Charles Barrow

  The Darkening Days of John Mann

  John Mann looked down into the ruined face of the young woman on the ground. The crows had taken her eyes. He cast a glance over to the lifeless bodies of the old man and woman on the other side of the farmyard. They’d all been dead for perhaps half a day, their heads stove in. A gory shovel lay on the cobbles nearby and Mann had to guess this had been used to end them. He looked again at the young woman lying at his feet and bent to pull the hem of her dress back down over her knees. There was no dignity in death, he knew, and she’d moved far beyond the all too human need of it anyway, into the care of the Almighty now, but he would do what he could for her. He studied her broken hand with its torn nails. She’d fought hard to defend herself and whoever had done this would bear the scars of her dying rage.

  He stood again and viewed the smouldering farmhouse. The fire was doing its best to consume the damp and decrepit building but was losing the battle. If it couldn’t manage flame it could certainly deliver smoke and great choking billows of it swept the yard now, stinging Mann’s eyes and catching in his throat. It was the great pall of smoke, seen from a distance that had brought Mann and Gunnar to a halt here.

  Gunnar stepped out of a nearby cinder block barn, his face muffled against the thick fumes, and crossed the yard to where Mann stood, ‘A hit for fuel and food.’ He pointed to the remnants of a woodpile, ‘And there are a score of empty hutches in the barn.’

  Mann shook his head in disgust. ‘Three dead for rabbits and kindling when we are surrounded by woodland?’

  Gunnar indicated the dead woman at their feet, ‘They took more than they carried away.’

  ‘We bury them.’ Mann growled and began to remove his coat.

  Gunnar placed a hand on his arm, ‘No.’

  Mann shook his arm free of Gunnar’s grip, ’I will not pass by and leave them to the birds.’

  Gunnar gazed into Mann’s angry face, still bruised and swollen from Amir’s beating, ‘I meant not to leave them here either,’ Gunnar said, ‘we will return them to their home and build the fire, and then you will say some words to send them on their way.’

  Mann opened his mouth to protest the burnings but suddenly felt weary and realized Gunnar was right. They were too depleted to dig graves and it mattered not to the dead either way. ‘It’s a good plan.’ He finally said. Gunnar nodded and walked away to where the old couple lay.

  It had been the work of two hours to cremate the bodies and send their souls to a more peaceful place. Their ashes would scatter in the coming winter winds and the woodland around would slowly reclaim the farm and there would be nothing left to mark their lives, their struggle and their passing. Except the memory of them, Mann thought, I will keep their memory alive until that too is replaced by the memory of others I’ve yet to bury. It did seem the bitterest luck that these people had escaped death by the choke only to meet it by the hands of someone who coveted what they’d worked hard to store away against lean times.

  Chapter Two

  Moving at a careful pace down a cracked and weed matted road, Mann was happy to have Gunnar drive. They had put a good distance between themselves and the south coast and were moving into unknown territory now. They were at the limits of Mann’s knowledge of the area, gained from his travels visiting the old, the ill and the spiritually desperate, while Gunnar knew better the land around where they were headed, but this left many miles of road and track in between that neither of them were familiar with. More to be feared than the open roads were the towns and villages they may have to enter on occasion for food and black market fuel. Since the inked ID on Mann’s arm now flagged him as the fugitive Cobra his access to rationed fuel, sanctioned for preachers, was denied them. This meant that they would have to trade en route to their destination. As if able to read his mind Gunnar spoke, ‘We’ll need to stop for fuel soon.’

  Gunnar cast a glance across at Mann in the passenger seat and didn’t see the girl step directly out into the path of the car. Mann shouted a warning and grabbed at the steering wheel as Gunnar stamped on the brakes. The car veered and screeched to a halt just a body length short of the girl. The men rocked back in their seats and sat a moment collecting their wits as the panicked girl rushed to the driver’s side window. Mann took the girl in at a glance, a teenager perhaps, she was slender and slight, with a tumble of unruly black hair, a patched blue dress and a thin brown coat.

  ‘Help me please.’ She cried as she reached Gunnar’s window, ‘It’s my baby, please come.’

  Mann looked past Gunnar and into the muffled face of the girl. ‘Calm, calm, where is the baby? What is the panic?’

  ‘Please preacher my baby is ill. Not the choke, he’d have passed two hours since if it was.’

  ‘I’ll come.’ Said Mann. Gunnar shot him a quizzical look. Mann shrugged, ‘A preacher’s lot.’

  Mann got out of the car and the girl spoke again to Gunnar, ‘Please Sir, you too, we’ll have need of your help.’ She opened Gunnar’s door and began to pull at his arm.

  ‘Whoa, whoa.’ Gunnar muffled his face as he climbed out of the car ‘I have no skill with babies.’

  ‘Perhaps then with the knives at your belt?’ The gruff voice came from the trees behind Gunnar, as did the unmistakable sound of a rifle’s hammer being cocked. Gunnar spun around to meet the sounds as Mann tensed in expectation of a volley of fire. Instead three masked men appeared. The one who had spoken came crashing out of the undergrowth between the roadside trees, rifle raised and aimed at Gunnar. Another man appeared in the road behind the car, shotgun shouldered. Mann turned at the lighter tread of the third climbing out of a ditch beside the road. He had a pistol levelled.

  ‘You any good with that knife Mister?’ The first and biggest man continued.

  ‘Lay down your arms and find out.’ Gunnar replied.

  The big man laughed, ‘And how about you preacher? You got any fighting talk in you?’

  ‘I’ll play no part in killing a preacher Will.’ Warned the man near the ditch.

  ‘Donal’s right Will,’ the one with the shotgun called, ‘that ain’t what we came for.’

  ‘Be fun though, wouldn’t it Todd?’

  Mann took a moment to study all three men who clearly had no fear of being named. Brothers, he thought, unmistakably. He looked at the girl too, who had moved a short way away and stood holding her thin coat tightly around her, and she their sister. They all shared pale skin and blue eyes and dark, dark hair. And the one called Will had facial markings that made Mann’s hackles rise now that he saw them clearly, two fresh tramline gouges tracked from the corner of his eye to disappear down beneath his mask. Mann promised himself he would ask some hard questions of this Will given the chance.

  The one called Todd spoke again, ‘Rosie, get the keys.’ The girl took a hesitant step towards Gunnar and stopped when he turned his gaze on her.

  ‘Highway robbery, Rosie, is that what you’re about?’ Gunnar said.

  ‘Keys.’ Todd repeated, wit
h more urgency this time, and the girl covered the ground to Gunnar quickly and held out her hand to him. Gunnar glanced at Mann over the roof of the car and raised his eyebrows in question. Mann knew what was being asked; can we take them? What are our odds? Mann took in the two brothers in his sight, both masked against the choke and out of range anyway, both with guns cocked and if only one gun was loaded neither he nor Gunnar would walk away from this. Mann shot a look back at Gunnar and shook his head.

  ‘The keys.’ Rosie said to Gunnar, ‘Please.’ He gave her a grim look and she returned his look with some defiance of her own, but hers was tinged with fear. Mann could see this and realized it wasn’t Gunnar who unsettled her. She betrayed herself when she flicked her eyes at her brother Will. She fears him more than us, Mann thought. He watched Gunnar press the car key into Rosie’s outstretched palm and saw her whisper a few words to Gunnar that he himself didn’t catch. This was the work of moments and she was already stepping backwards and clear of the car.

  ‘Now Gentlemen,’ Will called, ‘you’ll be lying face down in the road for us.’

  Chapter Three

  Jakob stepped out through the heavy oak door of the Abbey and the chill wind whipped at his robes, snatching the hood from his head. Autumn was racing into winter as the clouds flew over the Island and on towards the mainland without pause. A noisy skein of geese passed overhead and Jakob shuddered to think how desolate their distant home must be if they left it to over-winter in the bleak fields here. The countless scarlet berries on all the trees around him warned of a long, harsh winter ahead. He pulled his hood back over his head, holding it tight under his chin with one hand while he gathered the hem of his robe in the other and set off across the yard towards the pasture where he could see his twin sister Keen sitting astride the stile in the far fence.

  He was worried about her. In the few days since she had arrived she had said little, eaten less and slept not at all as far as he knew. John had brought her here to mend, as she had once brought him, and Jakob was determined she should mend whole again. He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been strong and it scared him a little to see her so depleted. She had always had an appetite for life that he seemed to lack and she was as fierce in her loves as she was in her vengeance, if crossed, and her husband Amir had felt the bitter truth of that as the last thing he’d known in this life. Balanced against his worry for her in her current condition was always his fear of her getting well and leaving, heading out again into a world where she drew attention and trouble like a magnet.

  He made his way over to the stile and sat beside her. She stared resolutely away towards the sea beyond the Abbey and the land beyond that though he knew that all she really saw was the past. 'What has happened to me?' She said without turning to look at him. Her hands were clenched tight in her lap and Jakob placed his hand on hers to calm them. 'All I do is sit and weep.'

  'You have come through a bad ordeal.'

  The wind whipped at her wild hair and she continued as if he had not spoken at all. 'After we lost Marshall and Peter in Brighton and John was safely here I gave up. I just surrendered...I settled.' She turned her sad face to him and Jakob looked at the deep lines around her eyes that he’d not noticed before. She put her hand, absently to the bruising that Amir had left at her throat.

  ‘He would not have hurt you had he known.’ Jakob said.

  'His betrayal alone was a knife in my heart.' She said bitterly, 'And look at the complication he's brought down upon John.'

  'John can take care of himself.'

  'I have always had to watch out for him. He always looks for the best in people. It'll be his undoing.'

  'He took an oath before God to find David and God will watch over him, bring him back to us.'

  Her eyes were full of pain. 'You seem very sure.'

  'As you must be.'

  'And strong enough for two now.' She whispered.

  Chapter Four

  Russell paced the floor of the laboratory, the broken plastic of the micro-syringes Mann had given her crunching underfoot. She had dimmed the lab lights so as to shield her presence but she herself was bright with anger, anger at herself for having been duped so easily. She had been so eager to believe that the darts held samples from John that she had not for a moment considered otherwise. She absolutely held him to be a man of his word, as a youth he had always worn his heart on his sleeve and never dissembled and she had thought this fact would still hold true. Naïve of her when everyone else lied to thrive and survive, why not him? She didn’t regret revealing the whereabouts of his parent’s gravesite in the exchange, in some ways it was a relief to be rid of that burden, but she could now kick herself for not being more wary of his eagerness to trade. Why would he be so keen to hand her the makings of a weapon, for such he believed? No matter how many times she had tried to impress upon him that while others might harvest him for ill use all she cared about was finding a cure.

  Still, despite his trickery, his anger and his threats, it had been good to finally stand face to face with him again, to know that he lived and that her decade of hoping and waiting hadn’t been in vain. But her plans hadn’t solidified in her grasp either, she still didn’t have John or any test specimens, and her time in the Facility was a counting down clock. She’d let it be known that she’d returned alone from Brighton because she’d sent her team to investigate another rumour of John’s appearance and she didn’t want to still be around, at least without high cards to play, when they failed to return, or worse, their bodies were discovered.

  John had been right when he’d claimed to have clipped her wings. Her options were indeed now limited, but he was in for a rude surprise if he thought he had drawn her sting completely.

  Chapter Five

  ‘The Mullens of the Far Common?’

  ‘That is what the girl whispered to me.’ Said Gunnar as he wiped at the road grime on the knees of his trousers.

  Mann felt anger again at the memory of the heavy boot between his own shoulder blades, pressing his cheek hard into the cold grit of the road. And anger because he and Gunnar could have taken the Mullens, their guns had clearly been empty else he and Gunnar would now be carrion on the tarmac. He looked westwards to the dark rain clouds approaching on the high winds that bent the grass in the fields around them.

  ‘Why would she betray family?’

  ‘She was taken with me and would like us to visit.’ Said Gunnar.

  ‘She was scared.’

  ‘A damsel in need of rescue.’

  ‘The Far Common is relative.’ Said Mann. ‘They could be anywhere.’

  Gunnar nodded in agreement, ‘And we have no wheels. We could chalk it down and continue on our road. We walk away with our lives and our coats and that’s more than a highway hit usually grants.’

  Mann shook his head, ‘I mean to get David’s locket back.’ Both men pictured the locket swinging on its gold chain from the rear view mirror in the car that the Mullen's had taken from them.

  Gunnar smiled, ‘Then I hope Rosie Mullen has laid her best table for guests.’

  Chapter Six

  Daniel Vincent returned the hand weights to the rack, dabbed the sweat from his brow and then wiped his slick hands on his vest. The echoing silence in the gym made it harder to concentrate, nothing prevented his scrambling thoughts from ricocheting around the large hall.

  ‘Well Private?’ Russell said.

  Vincent still avoided eye contact with her. He’d been cursing her since she’d busted him from Comms back to Clerical, with the resulting loss of rank, and face. His own arrogance had been the cause but regardless of that he’d thought up many a painful revenge for her while she’d never spoken so much as one word to him before now and here she was recruiting him for special duties. Not demanding but asking. Daniel cleared his throat.

  ‘Ma’am, my Senior Officer…’

  Russell spoke over his concern. ‘I’ve squared it with Miller.’ She said.

  He looked her fu
ll in the face for the first time. He saw a short, trim woman plenty old enough to be his mother but without any of his mother’s soft edges. She had a dark cast to her face that he always found unnerving. He reminded himself he didn’t need a warm relationship with her. What he needed was a leg up and out of the rank and file and she was offering him a ladder. And this time he knew to be wary of her. ‘It will be an honour Ma’am.’

  She nodded curtly and then wrinkled her nose ‘Then wash off the stink of stale shoes and report to my office.’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘And Vincent,' Russell pointed a stiff finger at him, 'breathe one word of this assignment, flap your loose lips again, and you’ll be swabbing these floors for the rest of your life. Understood?’

  Vincent hesitated a moment before inclining his head slightly, and, satisfied, Russell turned and strode from the hall.

  Chapter Seven

  After an hour’s hard walking through persistent rain, Mann and Gunnar found themselves entering a field of high grasses and taller teasels, their brown spiked leaves and seed heads swaying in the wind. They grew in such profusion in places that the two men found they had to divert around dense stands of them to avoid being snagged and pierced by the plant's sharp thorns.