Tooth and Nail

by Chris Bonnello

  ‘OK,’ muttered Kate, ‘I get it.’

  McCormick nodded and sighed as he tucked the detonator back into the rucksack.

  ‘When we get inside,’ he finished, ‘take it out of here, and look after it well.’

  Even with the limited light available, Kate could see the sadness in McCormick’s face. There had never been a figure in her life who had held as much faith in her as McCormick, but just for once it felt like he didn’t believe in her. Not for this task, anyway.

  Not that it matters, she thought. I’d be surprised if even one of us survives tomorrow. McCormick’s an old man. Alex has had Grant messing around inside his head. I’ve got Raj’s death affecting my judgement. And Ewan claims to be strong-minded and independent, but he’s useless without support from people he cares about.

  Between the four of us, I don’t see any potential survivors.

  *

  It was Shannon’s third consecutive night in the Boys’ Brigade attic, having had only a daytime’s break between the Oakenfold mission ending and New London beginning. She had become used to the dark and dingy nature of the Underdogs’ comms unit, and this time the company wasn’t much brighter. Mark was stood downstairs near the entrance, using a tiny window on the front wall as a vantage point to watch for possible invaders. And next to her in the attic, Lorraine sat unsmiling next to a cold mug of tea.

  Lorraine had changed over the course of the week. Or maybe hidden parts of her personality were becoming visible as times became more desperate. The uncompromising but loving nurse who had greeted her at Spitfire’s Rise three weeks earlier had become a harsh, openly wounded figure. By operating on McCormick, perhaps she had altered something inside herself too.

  Shannon didn’t know whether Lorraine would allow a well-meaning conversation or dismiss it hurtfully, but it was worth a try. The silence in the attic was nothing short of painful.

  ‘Did I ever thank you?’ asked Shannon. ‘For taking care of me when I arrived?’

  ‘I didn’t do it to be thanked.’

  Her voice was gruff, but not unkind.

  ‘Well… thank you anyway.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  The answer might have been genuine. Shannon didn’t get the impression that Lorraine was trying to shut her up. But she was uncomfortable with the unenthused, generic responses, which suggested that Lorraine didn’t value her own place in the group as much as she deserved to.

  ‘You’re allowed to be proud of what you do, you know…’

  Lorraine shot her a glance that was halfway between disbelief and offence.

  ‘And what makes you think I’d be proud?’

  ‘You save lives. Remember the last trip to New London? You treated Alex and Kate’s gunshot wounds, and even Ewan would be dead from infection if you hadn’t—’

  ‘I know the importance of what I do,’ Lorraine answered in a condescending voice. ‘But pride isn’t something I’m into. I do what I do out of duty, not to feel good about myself.’

  Lorraine’s tone gave Shannon the temptation to drop the subject altogether. But she couldn’t.

  ‘Can’t you at least be happy that you save lives?’

  ‘Happiness doesn’t come into it either.’

  Shannon had seen miserable people. There had not been one happy human in the whole of New London’s Outer City, including herself. But even so, she felt hurt by Lorraine’s refusal to even consider positive thought.

  ‘How can you think like that?’ she asked.

  Lorraine paused, and took a sip of her cold tea. For a moment it was unclear whether she would respond at all, but eventually she did.

  ‘Shannon,’ she asked, ‘do you believe the world is a beautiful place?’

  Shannon paused.

  ‘No,’ she answered, honestly.

  ‘People get to know me and assume I’m the same. The truth is, I do believe the world is beautiful. And I thank God every day for what we do have.’

  Shannon looked at her, confused.

  ‘Yes,’ Lorraine continued, ‘I’m a believer. I’m not a shout-it-from-the-rooftops believer like Raj was, although I used to be. These days though, it’s difficult for me to talk about religious faith when I see the world’s ugliness more than anything else.’

  ‘But you just said—’

  ‘That the world is beautiful. And it is. But I don’t see that beauty the way I used to.’

  Shannon looked around the attic, and imagined the remains of Great Britain beyond it. When she thought about it, Lorraine’s words were unsurprising.

  ‘I was a teaching assistant once,’ Lorraine said, ‘before my twenty years as a nurse. Worked with eleven-year-olds, mostly. Towards the end, I worked one-to-one with a boy called Joey Shetland. He had the kind of childhood that involved social workers. And the police, once in a while. He didn’t have the best start to life, and worst of all he knew that he hadn’t. Even as a child, he hated himself.’

  Shannon nodded. She understood.

  ‘But there was an extra layer of self-loathing, backed up by his parents. His mum told him he’d grow up to be useless like his dad, and his dad told him he’d grow up to be evil like his mum. So obediently, he believed them.’

  Lorraine paused, either for dramatic effect or to prepare herself for the rest of the story. Shannon suspected the latter.

  ‘I did some great things for Joey. And yes, I was happy about it. I was even proud. But halfway through Year Six he started talking about killing himself. Imagine it, Shannon, wanting death at the age of eleven.’

  I know, right? I was at least fourteen.

  ‘It wasn’t truly death that he wanted. He just wanted the bad thoughts gone from his head. Long story short, I helped him deal with his issues. He reached the end of the year in one piece, and when he finished juniors his family moved away.’

  Shannon breathed a sigh of relief, but Lorraine interrupted her mid-smile.

  ‘Within three months Joey was dead. A week after his twelfth birthday. I won’t tell you how.’

  Lorraine’s breathing pattern changed, as if fighting back tears.

  ‘He wrote… wrote two suicide notes. One to his family, telling them everything they had done wrong to him. The other was for me, of all people. My head teacher gave me the day off for his funeral, and that’s where Joey’s mother passed me the letter. It was still sealed, so she hadn’t peeked. Come to think about it, that was probably the only decent decision I remember her making. I read it at home… he didn’t even try to explain why. He only wrote two sentences. “I’m so sorry Mrs Shepherd. I just couldn’t do it”.’

  A bunch of Shannon’s own memories resurfaced in her mind. Hearing Joey’s story whilst dealing with her own background was no easy task.

  ‘It taught me the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn,’ Lorraine continued. ‘You can move Heaven and Earth to help people, but some things are beyond your power. I couldn’t save Joey because I couldn’t change his decisions. The only way to help people is if they let you. And not everyone will.’

  Lorraine let out a cough, and took a moment to steady her breathing. Shannon had no idea what to say, if anything at all, but it seemed like the hardest part of the story was over.

  ‘I couldn’t go back to the classroom after that,’ Lorraine continued. ‘Then I figured if I was in the lifesaving industry, I might as well go the whole hog and train as a nurse. A twelve-year-old’s death dragged me into a world where people died around me all the time, however hard I tried. The work was difficult, my husband and daughter had to suffer my moods when I came home at night, but I did a lot of good for a lot of people. So in my head, it was worth it.’

  By the end of Lorraine’s monologue, most of Shannon’s words had vanished from her mind. Only one sentence remained, and she spoke it.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because God may have created a beautiful world, but we’ve made it bloody ugly. The way we treat each other, the things we do to ourselves, the way we
neglect the sick and needy – human actions make everything ugly. So to be honest, I don’t have high standards for happiness anymore. I’m not here to make the world a beautiful place, Shannon. It’s already beautiful when we stop hurting ourselves and each other. I’m here to reduce this world’s ugliness, not increase its beauty.’

  Shannon had no words in response. Lorraine picked up her mug and drank the rest of her tea all in one.

  ‘And by allowing McCormick to go to New London,’ she finished, ‘I’m afraid that I might have added to the world’s ugliness.’

  Chapter 15

  Jack stood in the hallway of his new house – Spitfire’s Rise Mark 2, unless he could come up with a better name – and decided that, all things considered, it would be a suitable building. It didn’t have the fancy wallpaper or the nice furniture or the cleanliness that came from a year of being looked after, but there was a grandfather clock that looked nice and plenty of unexpired food in the cupboards.

  It had taken them until midnight to choose an acceptable village, but by one in the morning Jack had already found a house there that would suit the Underdogs’ needs. He hadn’t expected success that quickly, or even by the end of the night.

  Well,that was weird and unplanned, he thought as he nodded to himself in satisfaction. Just like me, I guess.

  As predicted, Jack had done most of the work himself. Thomas had plenty of ideas but none that were practical, Gracie had shied away from contributing at all, and whereas Simon was not to be underestimated, he had seemed content to follow the group that night. Or more specifically, to follow Jack.

  Jack marched back down the stairs and reopened the front door to the trio awaiting him in the front garden, their rucksacks and boxes of belongings rested on the driveway. Shannon, Lorraine and Mark would have more at comms, but even then it was a pitiful amount to have brought from home.

  I just called Spitfire’s Rise ‘home’. Even now.

  ‘Guys,’ he said, ‘I think I just found us a new house.’

  ‘Are the beds comfy?’ asked Gracie.

  ‘Wasn’t testing them, oddly enough. Come on, let’s start unpacking.’

  Gracie, Thomas and Simon in turn passed him, and walked into the building they were supposed to accept as their new hideout. But most of Jack’s brain was telling him to think of this as just another stop-off on the way to a mission, like Lemsford had been, and that after a night here they would be heading home tomorrow.

  In fact, how the hell are we going to keep this place a secret like we did with Spitfire’s Rise ? I’ve already seen the name of this village. Even if I take down all the signs myself before anyone else sees them, the moment I get captured…

  Jack shuddered. He pretended to himself that it was from the cold night breeze, rather than the memory of what Raj had done to himself to keep his knowledge a secret.

  Jack had searched in the most logical way he had known how to, of course. North of the original Spitfire’s Rise, to avoid any invading force from New London passing the new house along the way to the old. But not too far north, otherwise hours and hours would be added to every trip to New London. Out in the countryside to avoid the diseases of the cities. And most importantly, just the right balance between being an unlikely place for Grant to search but not being so unlikely that it would paradoxically become the most obvious place for them to hide.

  Jack hoped he had got everything right. The Underdogs were dead if he had made a mistake. And as a seventeen-year-old who was accustomed to the world telling him he was wrong about most things, he had a lot to overcome in order to feel confident.

  He turned to the front door and entered his new home, trying in vain to wipe the village’s name from his memory. With a memory like his, he wasn’t going to manage it. And with a village name like Tea Green – the most stereotypically English name a village could possibly have – it was already buried in his brain forever.

  He walked back into the darkened house, and switched his torch back on. This house was going to be intimidating and claustrophobic without the lights their petrol generator could have powered.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ came Gracie’s voice from somewhere on the ground floor.

  As was so often the case back in the old world, even Jack’s absolute best was not good enough.

  ‘Well, let’s see if the beds really are comfy,’ he answered, in a voice he made to sound confident. He fumbled his way up the stairs towards the closest bedroom. Ten seconds of this house being his home and he already needed a time-out. He started climbing through the dark; first one step at a time, and then two steps, and then jumps rather than steps. Just like how people found themselves needing the toilet more urgently the closer they got to it, Jack’s need for shelter became stronger with every step towards the bedroom.

  One of his quivering hands brushed against a living person that his torchlight had not detected. Both Jack and the small figure jumped in fright.

  ‘Sorry…’ said Thomas in the darkness. ‘Where do you think McCormick would want these?’

  Jack looked down at a collection of envelopes in Thomas’ hands. Jack loved Thomas as much as any decent person would, but at that moment he reached for the most dismissive answer possible.

  ‘Depends what’s in them,’ he said. ‘If it’s private, under his mattress.’

  ‘…Which one’s his?’

  ‘You get to choose.’

  Jack didn’t hang around for a reply. He slipped into the bedroom, closed the door behind him and plunged himself into the pitch black. He found the bed, and collapsed onto it with such force that the dust on the duvet leapt into the air like a swarm of disturbed flies.

  This isn’t home. It’s unfamiliar. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s missing all the little things that made life in the abandoned countryside tolerable, like electronic games and chessboards and our own little farm. Even the right people aren’t here. Most of them are dead and we don’t even have a Memorial Wall for them here .

  And on top of all that, this is one of the things in my life that I absolutely cannot afford to get even the slightest bit wrong…

  I’m scared here. I always will be.

  Before Jack knew it, he was in tears. He was not expecting actual tears – just the below-the-surface bubbling of emotions clawing their way towards his eyes – but the tears came regardless.

  It was absolutely the wrong moment for the silhouette of Gracie to walk through the door, but she did anyway.

  Two interruptions in less than a minute. Almost like the universe did not want him to rest.

  ‘I’m cold, Jack,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  There was a hint in her voice that she wanted something else, but Jack couldn’t translate it. After a momentary silence, she spoke again.

  ‘Could we… warm each other up?’

  Oh bloody hell Gracie, don’t put me in this position…

  ‘You know? With… kissing?’

  I took the hint, Gracie. Even I’m perceptive enough for that one.

  In one of the most awkward and uncomfortable moments of Jack’s adolescence, Gracie sat down on the bed next to him. The touch of her hand felt like a miniature electric shock; one which he felt guilty for feeling.

  He had spent much of the last year avoiding Gracie’s advances. But in Lemsford they had spent an afternoon alone, which had started with them making some kind of connection and had ended with them saving each other’s lives. Jack had since been wrestling with the idea of telling her the truth, and the hand against his side persuaded him the problem was not going away. It was better to get it over with, and that moment was the best opportunity to do so: not least because he had reached his full mental capacity for sadness anyway, so the ordeal wouldn’t make him feel any worse.

  ‘I’m not going to kiss you, Gracie.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t. And not after today either.’

  ‘I can teach you how it works if you like—’

  ‘No, Gr
acie. I’m sorry, I really am, but the answer’s no. I…’

  He took a deep breath, then finished his sentence after coughing out the dust that invaded his lungs.

  ‘…I can’t be who you want me to be.’

  At first, she gave no response. She probably hadn’t expected that answer. Maybe the thought of rejection hadn’t even crossed her mind, and in her own planned version of the conversation Jack was supposed to say yes. They were close friends after all, weren’t they?

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, not quite offended but certainly hurt.

  ‘I’ll never have a girlfriend, Gracie. Or a boyfriend. Or anyone. It’s my fault, not yours. There’s something up with my brain, and not just autism. It means I can’t find people attractive. Even pretty people… or people I really care about. And I do care about you. Honestly, I do. But if you can’t have me as just a friend then you can’t have me at all. I’m sorry… I don’t get to have a say in this. It’s my brain. My soul truly cares about you, but my brain doesn’t… well, you know. I’m sorry.’

  Gracie gave no words in return. Her breathing got louder and more erratic, and the mattress rose underneath Jack, revealing that she had stood up. One creak of the door later, the room fell silent.

  Well bloody played, Jack. The one person who will ever want to go out with a weird kid like you , and you broke her heart as punishment for asking.

  Then again, thought the other side of his brain, not telling her would have hurt her more in the long run. Whichever way I chose it was going to be wrong, but at least I chose the lesser evil.

  It was the type of thought train that could have occupied his brain for the entire night if he had not been interrupted. But a moment later, Simon completed the set of interrupters by bursting into the room.

  Finally, after holding himself together so well through the evening, Jack ran out of patience.