The Gamekeeper

by J Porteous

  The shadow was silent for a moment. ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’

  I fumbled with the wallet in my pocket, retrieving the photo from within. I held it out and offered it to the girl. ‘He gave me this to give to you.’

  A hand snatched the photo away from me. This close in the darkness, I could make some of the girl out. She was young, maybe around ten or eleven, with her hair cropped short on one side. There was something across her face, although I couldn’t fully make out what it was.

  I stood in silence on the ladder, awaiting the girl’s response. Another sound broke me from my stupor. Voices, and nearby too.

  I glanced up at the girl. ‘I’m going to need to come up here and shut the door, is that okay?’

  She didn’t look up from the photo. ‘Why?’

  I clambered back up into the attic, unsure of how much time I had until those voices were joined by their bodies. ‘I promise, it’s going to be okay. There are people coming, and I don’t know if they are my friends or not.’

  ‘Okay,’ the girl replied, her tone suddenly hushed as she looked up at me.

  I heaved the ladder back in and pulled the hatch shut with it. I looked at where the girl had been, but I could not pick her shadow out among the darkness. She’s the least of my worries right now. I led on the floor and put my eye to a gap in the floorboards.

  Shapes soon appeared near the doorway, and soon three people made their way cautiously into the barn. I watched them intently, recognising them as the people I had spotted earlier. They poked around in the corners, rifling through the clothes and inspecting the chipped mugs. One of them took a few swigs of water from the bowl in the corner.

  Within a few minutes, they grew bored and meandered towards the doorway. I kept an eye on them as they left; it was soon apparent I was not the only one doing so.

  Wood creaked heavily to the left of me. I glared over at the girl, placing a finger to my lips in an attempt to silence her. Her shape had frozen where it crouched.

  ‘Is that someone there?’

  I turned my gaze back to the gap in the floorboards. The three strangers were looking up at where we were, one of them pointing at the pull-cord for the attic steps. My heart thundered, muscles tensing at the idea of violence. I pulled back my coat and grasped my shotgun.

  The girl appeared next to me. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Go back and hide in your corner,’ I said. ‘And don’t come out until I tell you.’

  The entrance to the attic groaned open, the ladder falling down into the room below. I steeled my nerves and positioned myself near the sudden gap in the floor, shotgun aimed firmly at the top of the ladder. ‘Don’t come up here,’ I said, putting all of my force into the words. ‘I’ve got a gun.’

  ‘We’re not here to hurt anyone,’ one of them said. ‘We were heading north when we found a body, figured you might have been injured too.’

  ‘Yeah, well we’re fine,’ I replied, still not trusting them enough to peer down at them.

  I strained to make out what they bickered about, but the harsh whispers gave me the tone of disagreement. I looked across the room, but the girl was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘We’re sorry to intrude,’ the woman of the group said. ‘But we’ve been walking for a long time. Can we stay just to warm up?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, my voice now firm.

  It was one of the men who replied next. ‘We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have to be,’ he said. ‘Believe me when I say that I would give anything to be home right now, but I can’t. None of us can. It’s all gone.’

  ‘Shit happens,’ I said. ‘We all know the score by now. This is how we live.’

  ‘This isn’t just a few people knocking on your door and taking stuff,’ the man replied. ‘This is something different, something worse. There’s a horde of them, and I saw them burn our neighbours and then they came to burn us. All we could do is run.’ The man’s voice broke on those last few words.

  ‘Please,’ the woman said. ‘We just need to warm up, then we’ll be gone.’

  Before I could open my mouth to speak, another voice piped up.

  ‘Okay,’ the girl said, appearing next to me by the hatch. ‘We’re going anyway.’

  I reached over and grasped her arm. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ This close to her I could see what looked like heavy scarring across the right side of her face.

  She yanked her arm away from me and scurried back to one of the boxes. Her fear-widened eyes welled with tears.

  ‘I’m...I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘We just can’t be too careful, Not if we’re going to go see your dad.’

  ‘Is everything okay up there?’

  I glanced down the ladder to where the three people stood. They were definitely the people from before, but this close I could see the weariness to their faces. ‘We’re fine. The girl’s just a bit too trusting, that’s all.’

  ‘You’ve got to be wary of strangers,’ the woman said, her greasy, black hair framing a timid face. ‘Even more so these days.’

  I glanced back towards the girl and held a hand out. We’d wasted too much time here already. ‘Come on. We won’t make it to your dad before sundown at this rate.’

  The girl crept forward once more, as frightened as when I had first found her. ‘I want my dad.’

  ‘And we’ll go see him,’ I replied. ‘But we won’t get anywhere by staying here.’

  She came towards me, placing her soft hand in mine. I marvelled momentarily at her touch; it had been a very long time since I had seen or felt hands not calloused by work. ‘You go first,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The girl grasped on to the ladder and uneasily made her way down the creaking rungs. I kept my eyes on the three strangers at the bottom, ready to shoot if any of them made a move for her. ‘Stand back,’ I said. The three of them looked up. ‘I don’t want you getting too close to her.’

  They stepped back, allowing the girl to drop clumsily to the floor. She turned and beamed a smile.

  ‘I did it!’

  ‘You did,’ I replied. I made sure that my descent was quick, sliding down the edges of the ladder and thumping onto the barn floor. I turned to the girl. ‘Do you need to get anything? Do you have a coat?’

  She nodded and made a beeline towards the pile of clothes in the corner, rummaging through the assorted garments and pulling out ones she needed.

  ‘So, the girl,’ one of the men said. ‘She’s not yours?’

  I glanced towards him, a heavy-lidded man who looked half asleep. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  He passed a glance between his companion, who shifted uneasily in response. He turned to the girl as she tugged on a coat which was slightly too small for her, her forearms sticking out well clear of the coat. ‘Hey, little lady, what’s your name?’

  She gave me a brief glance before answering. ‘Jessica.’

  Jessica. I’ll have to remember that. At least until we get back to Community.

  ‘Do you know this man, Jessica?’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Well, no, not really, but my dad sent him. He’s taking me back to my dad.’

  ‘Is he now?’ The man turned to me once more. ‘Say, stranger, I don’t think I caught your name?’

  I held his glare with my own. ‘Most call me the Gamekeeper.’

  ‘Funny name.’

  ‘These are funny times,’ I replied. I caught Jessica’s attention. ‘Have you got everything? Ready to go?’

  She looked back at the pile of clothes. ‘My dad might want some of his jumpers, it looks cold out.’

  More to carry, not good. ‘That’s a good idea,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve got room for them in my bag. He did say he left some bits here.’

  The man stepped towards me, his dull glare eyeing me up and down. I reached a hand into my coat and wrapped my hand around the stock of my shotgun.

  His eyes drifted towards where my hand was head
ed, stopping in his tracks. He glared at me once more. He was close enough that I could pick out the crow-lines which gathered around his eyes.

  ‘Why didn’t her dad come back for her?’

  Luckily, I had told this lie already. ‘I’m from a settlement nearby, Community. One of the looters found him collapsed on the edge of the forest, said he was lost. He was in no fit state to head back, and he was so lost he couldn’t find his way if he tried. I know this area like the back of my hand, so it made sense for me to go.’ I nodded towards Jessica. ‘He gave me a picture to give to her. Isn’t that right, Jessica?’

  She nodded enthusiastically, digging the photo out of her pocket and waving it proudly. ‘It’s my dad’s favourite photo because it’s got my mum in it too.’

  It was the woman’s chance to turn the screw. ‘So, Community. Where is it from here?’

  Something I won’t have to bluff. ‘You’ve got to head south-east from here,’ I said. ‘It’s about eight or nine miles.’

  ‘Many people live there?’ the man asked again.

  ‘About thirty,’ I said, turning to him. ‘Nothing huge.’

  ‘Well,’ the man said. ‘You’d better tell them to move on. When those bastards sweep north, they’re going to burn it all away and add to the ash.’

  ‘And you’re going north?’ I replied. ‘What’s there to go for?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘We don’t know, but we sure as hell know what’s behind us.’ She paused to compose herself. ‘The lives we’ve carved for ourselves after the cities were wiped out. All gone now.’ She sighed. ‘We’ve just got to go somewhere, anywhere. If you’re sensible, you’ll do the same.’

  Jessica came towards me, a number of jumpers and shirts folded into a neat pile. ‘Do you think we can take all of these? My dad would hate to leave too many of them.’

  I dropped my rucksack to the floor and opened it. Her father’s blue jacket stared up at me, a wrench of guilt gnawing at my stomach. I pushed it to the bottom and out of sight. I held a hand out for her clothes. ‘We should be able to.’ I swiftly placed the extra clothes over the top of the jacket and closed the rucksack.

  In all reality, there was a selfish motive to what I was doing, and a sudden wave of shame washed over me. It wasn’t the first time I had taken what I had needed from the dead, but to have his own daughter willingly hand it to me was another thing altogether. I hoisted the rucksack back over my shoulder and stood.

  I nodded back towards the ladder. ‘There’s food upstairs, you should help yourselves while you rest.’

  The three of them passed glances between each other before the woman spoke. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘We appreciate it. If you take one thing from us in return, take our advice. Head north. Go now. Don’t wait until they come and kick down your door. Believe me, you don’t want to see what they can do.’

  I gave a thankful nod then waved Jessica towards me. ‘We’d better get going, Jessica. Your dad won’t want you out in the dark.’

  She beamed a smile at me and raced towards the door, briefly stopping to wave a fond farewell to the strangers who now temporarily inhabited her home.

  As the light caught her features I could see her face all too well. The scarring on the right side of her face and scalp was all caused by burns, her hands wrinkled in a similar fashion. Whatever she had been through, I had no doubt that she was made of stern stuff to make it through it.

  I stepped out after her, squinting at the sun which seemed bright even behind the grey clouds. I took a moment to reorient myself, aiming in the rough direction of Community.

  ‘How long until I get to see my dad?’ Jessica asked, jumping through the snow in great leaps.

  ‘A few hours,’ I replied. ‘Are you going to be okay to walk it?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, running off ahead. She turned back towards me and beckoned me with a grin. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

  I watched as she danced merrily away from me. My heart sank and I let out a deep sigh. I had lied to her to keep her out of danger, and now I was going to need to bear the fallout of it. That’s going to be one broken-hearted little girl.

  Chapter Two

  The path towards Community was certainly easier going from this direction. Jessica bounced ahead of me, letting me trudge through the snow in her wake. The hedgerows were thinner here, easier to step through, but the woods themselves were thicker.

  The snow swiftly disappeared, the canopy of tightly-packed evergreens keeping the worst of it from ever reaching the woodland floor. A carpet of dead twigs and pine needles softened the sound of my boots, the soaked wood bending easily beneath me. My eyes scanned the treeline, in case her father’s killer still lurked.

  Jessica ran her hand over the trees as she passed, gazing at them in wonder. ‘I’ve never been out this far before.’

  I paced along behind her. ‘No? Where have you been?’

  ‘Not far,’ Jessica replied. ‘My dad never let me go out of sight of the barn.’

  ‘Really? You’ve never been anywhere else? Where were you before you lived at the barn?’

  ‘I’ve always lived there.’

  I frowned at what she implied. ‘You’ve been there your whole life?’

  She nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yep. My dad said that he never lived there with mum, but it’s where we’ve always lived.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  That’s one naive eleven year old. If I had to judge her age by the way she acted, and her child-like enthusiasm, I never would have guessed that she was above eight. ‘Your dad takes good care of you then?’

  ‘He does. That’s why I was worried when he had been gone so long.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry. You’ll be taken care of once we get to Community,’ I said. Somehow, saying that felt marginally better than outright lying to her.

  She turned back to look at me, a look of puzzlement on her face. ‘You said your name is the Gamekeeper. Is that really your name?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s what everyone calls me, so I guess it is.’

  ‘Those strangers were right, it is a funny name.’

  ‘Well, that’s what people call me,’ I said, bringing a stop to the conversation. We carried on walking in silence. Jessica soon let her mind wander to other matters and continued to hum and skip through the woodland ahead.

  The trees thinned and the sun revealed itself once again. Through the breaks in the canopy and the ash-laden clouds, the sun showed its dim glow. I remembered a time before all of this when it was normal to feel the sun on your skin, but with the skies constantly dominated by thick clouds and ash, these days it was a rare treat.

  Judging by its position, it was mid-afternoon. I upped the pace, overtaking Jessica as her legs tired. The trees broke their hold of us completely, and I found us spat out on a familiar hill overlooking the path I had taken to set and retrieve my traps.

  Jessica caught up and stood beside me. She gazed out across the wide fields and overgrown roads. ‘Wow, it’s so big.’

  I glanced down at her. ‘This is just a tiny sliver of the world.’

  ‘My dad used to tell me about the world. He said it isn’t there any more.’

  ‘It’s still there,’ I said. ‘Although it may as well not be.’

  She smiled and looked off towards the distance. ‘It’s like we’re going on an adventure. I can’t wait to get Dad and go see it all.’

  I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a place for any such innocence in this world. Those that survived the plague and the quarantine fires had picked a living from the carcass of humanity for years; stealing, murdering, and squabbling. It had been eleven years, and I still could not see a light at the end of the tunnel.

  ‘Which way are we going? Can I see it from here?’ Jessica said, craning her neck as if it might allow her a glimpse of her father.

  ‘We’re going south-east,’ I said. ‘So we’re going-’ My words crumbled in my mouth as I looked towards Comm
unity.

  There was another hill between where we were stood and Community, but on the other side of that hill was a tall and black pillar of smoke. Something was burning. Something substantial.

  ‘Are we going towards the smoke?’ Jessica asked. ‘At least it’s easy to find.’

  ‘The smoke isn’t usually there,’ I said, finding my voice again.

  Jessica clutched my hand. ‘Do you think my dad is okay?’ Her voice had become small and quiet.

  I looked towards the rising smoke. I had never attached myself to any settled group, moving from one to the next and trading my skills as a gamekeeper for lodgings. If anything had happened like this in the past, then I simply would have cut my losses and moved on. People died in this world, it was just a fact.

  The hand which clutched at my own leathered one seemed to scramble my normal thoughts. I could tell her, right here, that her father was dead, to break her heart just as she had truly entered this world. Something in me fought against that thought with all its might. It had been so long since I had seen a true spark of hope in this world that I could not bring myself to snuff it out. There were enough broken souls out there, adding one more to the pile wouldn’t help things.

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ I finally replied. ‘But we’re going to need to go and find out for sure. Do you think you can be brave enough to do that?’

  Jessica nodded. ‘My dad would do the same for me.’

  In a moment of self-consciousness, I pulled my hand away from hers. Here I was, trying to placate someone when I knew the opposite was true. I pulled my coat closer around me and shifted the weight of my rucksack. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’re going to need to be there in daylight if we’re going to be helpful.’

  It was another hour until we had covered the ground between where we were and the outskirts of Community. The smoke plume now filled the sky overhead, and ash rained down around us. It dredged up painful memories of the initial weeks after the government had scorched the quarantine zones; and the ash which rained down for what seemed like forever in the aftermath.