Jackie scrutinised the thick ash tree half dissected by his saw. “What are you working on?”
“An idea,” he said. “Might not pan out, but he who dares…”
“You sound like Del Boy.”
Ted chuckled. “Let’s pretend I was quoting the SAS and not Fools and Horses. Thanks for the tea, you didn’t have to.”
“Nonsense. All the sweat you’ve given us…” She sighed and looked at him for a slightly disconcerting amount of time before speaking again. “You remind me a lot of my husband, you know?”
Ted didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him that Jackie might be married, especially after admitting she had a son, but it was a surprise, and he didn’t know how to respond. “Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t realise. Did he, um…?”
“Get eaten by demons? No, cancer was the beast that ate my dear George. Ten years ago now. Colon cancer. Just bad luck really. He put off going to the doctors for far too long. He was thirty-nine.”
“That’s some shit luck. I’m sorry.”
“It was the worst time in my life. Perhaps it was a blessing though, my George not having to face this.”
“Maybe your husband dying is what made you so tough. You’re a survivor, Jackie.”
She blushed and had to glance at the ground. “Anyway, I was saying that you reminded me of my George. He was a glazier, had a small factory that produced windows and doors. Not a glamorous job, but he worked hard at it. The thing I loved about him most was his commitment. He believed there was no point doing anything unless you did it to the best of your ability. I can see you were both cut from the same cloth.”
Ted sipped his tea, disguising the fact he didn’t know what to say. He liked Jackie even if he wasn’t sure why. She wore her heart on her sleeve—the complete opposite of himself—but it made her easy to talk to—no second-guessing or ambiguity about what she was thinking.
She looked at him now and smiled. “I’m glad I met you, Ted. You’ve kept me sane these last two weeks, do you know that? I think Frank would have driven me quite mad if you hadn’t arrived.”
“Ha! Yeah, that geezer’s an odd one, ain’t he? His heart is in the right place though.”
Jackie nodded. “It is. It’s his heart that led to him being with us in the first place.”
“What d’you mean?”
“It was Frank’s coach that brought us here. The company we hired let us down at the last minute. With those black stones freaking everyone out, most of their drivers had called in sick. Frank worked for the same company and gave up his day off rather than let the kid’s weekend get cancelled. None of us had ever met him before all this started.”
“You’re joking? He’s certainly one of the family now. When I first met Eric, he told me he wasn’t one of you either at the start, that he used to work here as a volunteer.”
“Yes. When we arrived here, there were lots of staff—cleaners, groundsmen, et cetera. Soon, as the news hit about the attacks, they left to be with their families. They all lived local, but we were a lot farther from home, so it wasn’t so easy for us to flee. Eric was the only original member of staff who stayed. He was divorced, no kids.”
Ted laced his fingers together and look at the ground. “I was divorced too. I was a bad husband. Spent my nights down the pub and my days working. My dad brought me up thinking women were there to look after a man while he made the money. I never challenged that opinion until Chloe was born. The older she got, the more I couldn’t bear the thought of a man treating her the way I treated her mum. By then it was too late, my marriage was already loveless.”
Jackie grasped his forearm and looked at him. “That’s sad, but at least you changed, even if it was too late. I think where we end up as people is more important than where we start.”
He nodded. “Yeah, well, my ex-wife and I got on better after the divorce than we ever did married. Was all for the best.”
“I think if there’s any good to come of this, it’s that we can all let go of the past.”
Ted sipped his tea, an excuse to move his arm out of her grasp. He offered the mug to Jackie a moment later. “We should share if it’s running low.”
She smiled and accepted the drink. After a moment, she turned to him and asked a question. “Are you still planning on leaving?”
“What?” He tried to look like he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Oh, come now, Ted, don’t play games. You spend every minute working, barely talking to a soul. It feels like you’re trying to finish the job as quickly as you can without getting to know anybody.”
“The demons could be here any day. I’m working as hard as I can to make us safe.”
She nodded. “True, but I can tell you’re still planning to go. There’s a far-away look in your eyes, and I know you’re thinking of someplace else. But sometimes I think I catch you feeling sad at the thought of leaving us. You’re starting to like this place, aren’t you?”
“I…” He sighed. “Yes, it’s been… easier here than it has been in a long time.”
“You think we’re doomed?”
He wanted to say no, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie. “I do, yes.”
“So, you’re going to leave us to our fates? You don’t want to be here when it happens.”
It didn’t seem like she was berating him, more just trying to get the facts straight. “I’m doing all I can to ensure you have a fighting chance. I’ve done more for this place than anyone has—”
She put a hand up and halted him. “You have, without question. If you want to leave, no one has any right to chastise you. I just worry about whether you could live with yourself afterwards.”
The statement drew a derisory snort from Ted. “Don’t worry about my conscience, Jackie. I’ll be okay.”
She pointed towards the castle. In front of its main entrance, Philip corralled the camp’s dozen preteens. In the last few days, the man had started telling a story each morning. He particularly had a flair for his retelling of The Gruffalo. Ted assumed it was a way for him to work through his grief after losing his son, Bray.
Jackie looked at Ted, but kept her arm pointed towards the group of children. “These children need every adult they can cling to. We need to protect them, Ted. We owe it to whatever future might be left.”
“The only child I owe anything to is my dead daughter,” he snapped, growing angry. His aggressive impulses had lessened recently, but he realised now how close to the surface they remained.
“I understand that, Ted, but what would Chloe want you to do? Ask yourself. Wouldn’t she want you to give these children the chance she never got?”
“Be careful, Jackie.”
But she didn’t heed his warning. Instead, she kept on at him. “Chloe’s memory shouldn’t be a dagger in your heart, Ted. She should be the smile on your lips. Keep her with you as a strength, not a weakness. These children need you now, and I think you need them too. Whatever promises you made Chloe aren’t as important as keeping these children alive. She wouldn’t want her daddy to run away. She’d want you to be a hero.”
Ted snarled and feared he might lash out. If he hurt Jackie, it would be the end of him. It would mean he truly had lost control. “Y-You have no right,” he said. “I…” He felt a tear slip onto his cheek and nestle in his stubble. He clenched his fists in fury. How dare this woman play with his emotions. How dare she speak about his daughter. Yet, the rage sizzled into his fingertips, pushed to his extremities by the warming in his chest. More tears fell.
Jackie leant forward and held him. She rubbed his back, which drew massive sobs. “It’s okay, Ted. One day, when this is all over, I want to hear everything there is to know about Chloe. She will never be gone, I promise you.”
“She was my little girl, and those fucking monsters took her away from me.”
“Too right, they fucking did. So, stay with us and help us fight back. Everyone keeps telling me we’re doomed, but I refuse to accept it. I’m not in
terested in just surviving. I want to show those shitting monsters that they picked the wrong fight. Fuck them!”
Ted reared back, stunned. “Jackie, you keep swearing like that and I’ll make you my foreman.”
She let out a hoot. “Just don’t tell anyone. I’ll lose my air of sophistication.”
Ted laughed hysterically, tears drenching his cheeks. All of this emotion was wretched, turning him inside out, but it felt good too. It was like coming up for air. “You really think Chloe is still with me?”
Jackie stopped laughing and grew serious. “Can either of us be sure she isn’t? Everything we thought we knew about the universe is wrong. There are places beyond this one, we know that now for sure. Perhaps you should stop thinking about promises you made Chloe in the past and make her some new ones. Who knows, she might be watching. Isn’t that enough?”
The thought that his daughter might still exist in some form sent a shiver down Ted’s spine. It rocked the very core of him and filled him with something he thought he’d lost forever—hope. He looked over at the children huddled in front of Philip and saw they still had it too. As long as there were children, there was hope.
“I’ll stay,” he said, feeling a massive relief to know his journey had come to an end and that he was home. “I’ll stay here and fight.”
33
DR KAMIYO
Two days passed without drama, but tension there was in spades. Kamiyo imagined what patients used to go through waiting for the results of a biopsy. That endless, runaway worry about an oddly shaped mole or slight lump in the breast. Waiting for a death sentence was torture. Waiting for demons to attack was no better. Apprehension was a lingering wound.
Speaking of lingering wounds, Kamiyo’s hands slowly returned to their original size. They were a sickly purple now, and every slight movement was sickeningly painful, but all of his fingers moved, and he thought he might get close to full use of them back. The main thing was that his hands worked well enough to leave the forest in search of supplies. Injured or not, it had to happen.
“I’m leaving,” he announced over the chitchat in the castle’s great hall. He stood before the crackling hearth which felt like the appropriate place to give a public address. His statement went unnoticed, absorbed into the evening’s background din, so he cleared his throat and spoke again louder. “I said, I’m leaving!”
This time he got a reaction. Those who were eating stopped chewing and looked at him. Slowly, all heads turned his way. Hannah was the one to give the first objection. “The heck you talking about, Doc?”
“I’m talking about the fact we’re still low on supplies.”
“We’re fine. The stuff I carried back from the Post Office bought us some time. Once I’m rested up, I’ll head out again.”
She was referring to the dog bite on her shin. It had been a deep and painful wound, which Kamiyo was sure would have killed her if not for the antiseptic she herself had found. Kamiyo looked at her now, knowing that getting her onboard would be key. “Any day now we expect to be attacked. That means we might not get another chance to head out and get what we need. Ted here is doing an excellent job of barricading us inside, but the point of a siege isn’t to break down the walls.”
“What do you mean?” Carol asked. “I don’t understand.”
Ted groaned. “He means if the demons come in force, they can just wait us out until we starve. How the Hell didn’t that dawn on me sooner?”
“We can’t survive a siege with nothing in the pantry,” Kamiyo explained. “We’ll be cut off from the lake, the forest. Once again, it turns to our need for crops, long-term rations, and medicine. We need to plant within the castle’s walls and scavenge the nearby village for dried food and water. One summer without rain and we’ll die of dehydration in a week. We’re living hand to mouth, and that doesn’t work with an enemy at our walls.”
Hannah frowned. “Okay, Doc, point taken. But why you? Why do you want to be the one to leave?”
“Because we need medicine as much as we do food, and if we’re only going to get one shot at this, we’ll need to be thrifty with what we bring back. There’s no point filling a rucksack with beta blockers and statins when what we need is antibiotics, blood thinners, anti-coagulants, strong painkillers, et cetera. I am the only one who can find a pharmacy and fill a rucksack only with what we need. If there’s only time for one trip, there will only be room to carry so much. If you want another argument, then I would point out that Hannah has an injured leg, and Ted is too busy making this place safe. Who else is there?”
Hannah nodded and gave no further comment.
“You’re injured too,” said Jackie. “Your hands…”
“Are a mess,” he admitted. “I won’t be writing any letters for a while, but I can hold a weapon and scoop supplies into a bag. There’s nothing useful I can do here, but I know how to survive out there.”
“You don’t have to do this,” said Jackie. Her voice tremored, her resolve was fading. She knew it had to happen too.
Kamiyo sighed. The fire at his back was making him sweat, but he used the discomfort to steel himself to push forward with his intentions. “I have to do this. The reason the demons found this place is because my pack ripped open when I was running through the forest. I lead them here.”
“You don’t know that,” said Jackie. “And it was only a matter of time before they found us, anyway.”
“If there’s even a slim chance I brought the demons, I need to make it right. Everyone is doing their part, but it will all amount to nothing if we don’t have supplies enough to last us. This isn’t even a decision to be made, it’s necessary, and I’ve decided. I’ll head out first thing in the morning.”
There was a moment’s silence, almost like he’d just announced he was terminally ill. They expected him to die. He expected it too.
“I’m coming with you.”
Kamiyo studied the crowd, wondering who had spoken. When Philip stood up, he repeated himself. “I’m coming with you.”
Carol gasped. “Philip, no!”
Philip tutted. “Calm down, Carol.”
Kamiyo was confused. Of all the people to volunteer to help him, Philip was the last he expected. What was the man’s agenda? “Philip, why do you want to come with me?”
“Because this isn’t your burden to take on alone. This place belongs to us all.”
“Philip, sit down,” said Jackie. “You have no idea how to survive out there.”
Philip nodded as if he agreed with her. “Then the doctor will have to do his best to keep me from getting killed. If I go with him, we’ll be able to bring twice as much back. Like he said, we might only get one shot at this.”
“You can’t come with me, Philip.” Kamiyo tried to speak with all the authority he could muster.
Philip folded his arms. “Not that I need your permission, but why?”
“Because I don’t trust you. You blame me for your son’s death.”
Philip flinched. He looked down at the floor for a moment like he was trying not to lose control of his emotions. He cleared his throat and looked up again. “I don’t know what I feel anymore,” he said. “But Bray is gone. Eric is gone. Lots of people are gone. But the rest of us are still here. Whatever you are or are not responsible for, I can see you’re trying to do the right thing. I’d like the chance to do the same.”
Kamiyo studied the man, disliking him still, but knowing he couldn’t live here with an enemy any longer. If this was the risk he needed to take to make peace with Philip, he had to take it.
Someone else shouted out.
“I shall also attend your journey.” It was Aymun, speaking from the shadows at the back of the room. The man had made little attempt to integrate with the group, as though he expected to be leaving soon. He spent most of his time on the castle walls, staring off into the distance. “If you two men have trust issues, then I shall be the salve for any tempers that arise.
Kamiyo and Philip exchang
ed glances, and then a shrug. “Okay,” said Kamiyo. “More the merrier, I suppose.”
“Then I’m coming too,” said Nathan. “You promised to let me come.”
Kamiyo located the boy in the crowd and groaned. “No, I didn’t Nathan.”
Nathan shot up out of his seat. “Yes, you did! You said I could come, and that you’d teach me to make it out there.”
“Sit down, Nathan,” Jackie demanded. “You’re not leaving the camp.”
“Fuck you, Jackie. No one here has the right to tell me what I can and can’t do. My mum is dead. Everyone is dead. And you’re all next.”
Jackie’s mouth fell open in a huge gasp. Ted, who stood beside her, eased her back down into her seat. He faced down the defiant teenager, looking like he might throw a punch. “Nathan, be a good lad and listen to your elders. There might be a time when you can leave this forest, but it ain’t now. If you’re looking for things to do, I’m sure there’s plenty I can-”
“This is bullshit! If I don’t learn how to survive out there, then I’m as good as dead. I want to learn how to fight.”
“Sit down, dickhead,” one of the other teenagers called out. Nathan shot back a look but kept his focus on Ted.
Ted stepped over to the lad, towering over him. Nathan didn’t flinch, even as Ted stared him hard in the eye. “You want to know what’s out there, kid? A world where every single child has been ripped to shreds. A world where corpses stink up every street, turning to liquid on the pavement. Outside this forest is a wasteland of horrors that even your warped mind can’t imagine. You might think you want to know what’s out there, but you don’t. In fact, you’d piss your pants.”
Kamiyo groaned at the hardline approach. Nathan isn’t the type of kid you can just yell at to behave.
The teenagers in the room howled with laughter, and Nathan’s plain expression cracked. His dark eyebrows lowered into a scowl and glanced back at his peers and cursed at them, using language so foul it was impressive. Once he’d run out of steam, he shook his head in defeat. “You’re all dead,” he muttered. “Every one of you.”
Hell On Earth Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 101
