by Paul Kane
"What's a matter, can't ye speak or summat? Bit slow, eh?"
Robert shook his head to indicate that there was nothing wrong with his faculties. It had just been so long since he'd spoken, he wasn't even sure if he could anymore. Carefully, he began to reach across into his open coat.
"Keep yer hands where I can see 'em," instructed the man, moving forward.
"I…" began Robert. The sensation of talking felt odd; alien even. The look of shock on his face must have registered, because the man frowned.
"Just what's yer game? We don't want no trouble at the market."
"No game. No trouble," Robert assured him. With each word, his voice grew stronger. "I've just come along to trade."
"That so?"
"It is. If you'll let me…?" Robert reached into his coat again, very slowly, the shotgun trained on him the whole time. "Easy… easy… See, in my pouch."
The man drew nearer to get a better look. "Rabbits?"
"Rabbits," repeated Robert.
Then the 'farmer' began to laugh: long, hard chuckles that caused his frame to shake. "Oh, that's a good un," he said eventually. "Rabbits… Judas Priest! What yer thinking of swappin' for them scrawny devils?"
Robert shrugged, pulling down his hood. "Whatever I can."
Lowering his shotgun, the other man wiped the tears from his eyes. "Aye, I'd be interested to see it an' all. Well, come on. Let's take yer down there, then, before all the best bargains are gone."
For a second, Robert hesitated, the very thought of meeting, of mixing with that number of people was terrifying. What if the men after him should happen by? "Is… is it safe?" asked Robert.
The man frowned. "Safe? What yer talkin' about?"
He didn't have a choice, he had to ask. "The… the men in yellow suits. The ones who set fire to the bodies."
He looked at Robert like he was insane. "Where yer bin, on Mars or somethin'?"
"Something," admitted Robert.
"They haven't bin round for ages, that lot. Not since the early days."
"What happened to them?"
"Dead," said the man, his face stern. "Like everyone else."
"So there was no cure?"
"Cure?" He laughed again, but there was a bitterness to it this time. "There were never any cure. Look, are ye comin' to the market or not? I haven't got all day."
Robert gave a small nod, and they began to walk across the field. The closer they came, the more he wanted to run – even though he knew the fear was irrational.
What if he's wrong – what if they're still out there somewhere, looking for you?
You heard what he said, they're all dead. Only the O-Negs are left. It's the grand total of the human race.
But…
"So, yer a poacher?" the man said, interrupting Robert's argument with himself. He nodded at the bow to emphasise what he meant.
"Can you poach something that doesn't belong to anyone anymore?"
"I meant before, like?"
"Not exactly," Robert said. And you wouldn't believe me if I told you.
They were nearly at the market and Robert could feel all eyes turning upon him. He wasn't a regular here, and everyone knew it. It was the same feeling as when he used to enter an unfamiliar neighbourhood to make an arrest.
"Well, 'ere we are then," said the man. "My name's Bill, by the way. Bill Locke." He stuck out his hand and Robert examined it for a moment before looking back up at his face. Such a simple act of humanity, of friendship, and it threw him completely. Then he reached out and shook it. The man's grip was rough and firm, once again emphasising that he'd worked with his hands all his life; Robert couldn't compete with that – too many years of domestic bliss before embracing the wild.
He noticed the man was waiting for something, then realised he hadn't told him his own name. "I'm…" I was… I used to be a man called Stokes. But what am I now? Who am I now? "They call me Robert."
"How do then, Rob."
Bill finished pumping his hand, then let him go. Robert noticed that the people in the market seemed to accept him more now that they'd seen the handshake. Whatever Bill did here, whether it was organise the events, provide security, or simply trade, he was well respected.
Robert looked around at what was on offer. On one stall there was hand-made pottery, plates and cups; on another knitwear. A young woman of about twenty was selling these, but Robert imagined some old lady with O-Neg blood, sat somewhere knitting with whatever wool they could get her. And there were piles of other clothing, manufactured before The Cull: no dresses and skirts for women now, though, only more practical fare like trousers and jackets. One man had axes, knives, hammers – tools of various sizes and shapes – set out in front of him, obviously scavenged from hardware shops. A few batteries caught Robert's eye, mainly because he hadn't seen anything even remotely technological in so long. He found medical supplies on another blanket, antiseptics, pills – some identifiable, some not – plasters and bandages. There were suitcases, haversacks and holdalls, which at first he thought were just what the items had been carried here in, but then he saw people bartering for these, too.
There were tins of food, just like the ones Joanne had stockpiled and on which he'd lived after his family had died, but there was more fresh food to be found than anything else. Fruit and vegetables, which looked more appetising than anything he'd ever seen in a supermarket. Someone had taken their time growing these: ripe tomatoes, apples, runner beans, potatoes, most of them sold by a willowy woman with auburn hair. Very few pieces of fruit from more exotic climes, Robert noted, such as bananas or oranges. Hardly surprising now that there were fewer people to bring them in from overseas (and just what was happening over there anyway – were they in the same state as this country?). Everything here smacked of a survival instinct he could relate to, of human beings making do in the face of adversity. The ones that were left behind were obviously slowly forming communities of their own. He could tell that by the handfuls that had been sent to represent them at the market.
The meat – pork, beef and chicken – looked mouth-wateringly good, and now Robert understood why Bill had laughed when he showed him the rabbits. They weren't even skinned or properly prepared. Maybe next time he could bring some tastier treats from the ice houses.
Next time? What the hell was he thinking about… Robert couldn't come back here again. Couldn't allow himself to get drawn into the world again, to make friends, to talk with other people. Even if it were true and the men in those gas masks were no longer a problem, he still had his waiting to do, was still sworn to live out the rest of his life – however long or short that was – alone.
"Your first time here, huh?" said someone to the left of him. Lost in his thoughts, Robert gave a start. Then he looked over and his mouth dropped open.
Stevie?
He blinked once, twice, then saw the reality of who was in front of him.
The boy was twelve or thirteen, with a scruffy mop of hair that had once been blond – possibly could be again given a proper wash – and deep green eyes. He was wearing a baggy tracksuit, with a belt round the middle that had numerous pockets attached. He looked like he was playing superhero, but Robert knew full well that every single pocket would be filled with something important. The lad had a rucksack slung over his shoulder, which appeared to be full.
Robert opened his mouth, then closed it again, having completely forgotten what the kid had said.
"I haven't seen you here before," he continued, not put off by Robert's silence. The boy looked him up and down. "Would've remembered you, that's for sure. You have much to trade?"
Robert shook his head.
"That's a pity. It's a good market today, lots on offer. Isn't always that way, you know. Have to make the most of it while you can. I'm Mark, by the way."
Again, Robert just gaped at him. Was there a resemblance, or was it just in his head? True, Mark had a similar hair-tone, but his eyes were a different colour and he was much thinner, the c
heekbones less padded with puppy fat.
"Who you here with, Mark?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your parents-" began Robert, then kicked himself when Mark looked down. Of course they were dead. Everyone was dead. "I'm sorry… Look, haven't you got anyone who takes care of you?"
Mark scowled at that one. "I take care of myself," he replied indignantly. "I'm not a kid."
Robert shook his head. "That wasn't what I meant."
"I find stuff myself, bring it here myself, trade it myself. Just like the others."
"There are more like you?" said Robert, barely able to conceal the shock from his voice.
"'Course. We're not professional collectors, mind, just snatch what we need to get by from the towns and cities." He appeared very proud of his profession. "We can get into places other people can't. And we're small enough to hide if there's trouble. I've got plenty of hiding places, me. So we go in, we come back out again. Easy."
"My God," Robert whispered to himself. He'd once seen a documentary about orphans who lived on the streets – or more specifically in the sewers of Bucharest, Romania. As the people had filmed them for the news report, bottles floated past in the dirty water and cockroaches climbed over the pipes where they slept. They were called 'The Forgotten Children'. When Robert looked at Mark he saw the same thing. In the wake of the virus, The Cull, these were England's forgotten children, left to fend for themselves, because if they didn't they would die. What kind of future did they have to look forward to?
"It's no big deal," said Mark, smiling. He reached into his bag and pulled out a chocolate bar with a purple wrapper, then proffered it to Robert. "You want one? I got dozens."
Robert held up a hand to say no, then reconsidered. How long had it been since he'd tasted chocolate? Far longer than he'd been in the woods. It used to be his weakness at Christmas and Easter. Part of him was tempted now, but another part was linking this small pleasure to those times in his life when he'd been happy; seeing Stevie opening his presents, his eggs, Joanne playfully threatening that she'd take the box of Dark Delicious away from Robert as they sat watching the holiday movies. What right did he have to that now? "No," he said to Mark, "thanks, but no."
Mark shrugged and opened the bar, biting off a chunk with the same glee that Stevie always did.
Stevie.
Robert was suddenly aware that he could no longer stay here. That if he did he might just break down and start bawling his eyes out in front of all these people, in front of Mark. The pain was still too real for him, still too close.
"I've got to go," he said, voice shaky.
"Wait…" Mark started, but Robert was already walking away from the boy, from the market.
"I'm sorry," Robert called back over his shoulder, pulling up his hood as he went. He strode past Bill, who was haggling with another man over the 'price' of an onion.
"Off s'soon?" said Bill. "Any joy with them rabbits?" When Robert didn't answer him, he laughed and said: "Thought not. Better luck next time, eh? We're 'ere most Wednesdays, all day…"
But the voice was fading as Robert broke into a run. He sprinted across the field, not daring to look back. He just needed to return to the safety of the woods, the cover the trees and foliage gave him.
Just like Mark, he had his own hiding places.
CHAPTER FIVE
As De Falaise sat back in the seat, he'd pull down his sunglasses occasionally and glance in the wing mirror of the Bedford armoured truck. From this angle it was difficult to see the extent of the line, but he knew it stretched right back along the motorway, zigzagging its way around the stationary cars with skeletons at the wheels. From the air it would have looked like a convoy: one of the wagon trains from the Old West, or even an army during the crusades (as a student of history, these kinds of comparisons amused him). But instead of being on horseback or in wagons, his men were encased in Challenger 2 battle tanks, Warrior Mechanised Combat Vehicles, Hummer muscle jeeps, Land Rover Wolves, open top WIMIKs, and other Bedfords: some capable of carrying up to twenty troops. Keeping them all in line were motorbikes patrolling the length of the convoy, ridden by his trusted elite brought across the Channel with him.
Like Tanek, driving this truck. The olive-skinned man stared ahead at the road, changing gears every so often, but never taking his eyes off the route ahead. De Falaise admired his single-mindedness. It reminded him of his own. He recalled the first time he'd come across the soldier, in a small provincial town in Turkey. De Falaise had been engaged in a highly illegal gun-running operation when the virus struck, and was quite grateful that people began dropping like flies because he'd been well on his way to getting caught… or killed. He subsequently decided to make his way towards Istanbul, with a plan to somehow travel through Europe and get back home to France. The plan wasn't very clear in his mind, mainly because it was every man for himself in the region at that precise time. What money he had acquired from the deal meant nothing, and De Falaise was beginning to regret handing over the firearms he'd snuck across the borders of several countries. Bullets now seemed to be the only way to get anything, and the only way to stay alive.
He certainly hadn't expected to run into his soon-to-be second-in-command outside a small watering hole there. The bar had been quite full, some of the men inside immune to the disease that was sweeping its way across the world, some of them in the later stages of it and desperate to drink themselves to death. De Falaise had realised long ago that there was no point in attempting to outrun the virus, nor was there any point in trying to avoid the people who were coughing up blood everywhere. If it was his time, then so be it; he'd meet the Devil and shake his hand. Who knows, maybe he'd even get a line of congratulation or two for services rendered. As it turned out, De Falaise was one of those spared, so perhaps his 'good' work hadn't gone unnoticed after all. The Devil looks after his own, isn't that what they always said? If so, then he'd also looked after this hulking great brute of a man who'd been taking on all comers in that very bar.
Drawing nearer, the Frenchman watched, increasingly impressed, as the fighter picked up men and swung them over his head, using moves he'd never come across before to floor others (De Falaise had later found out this fighting style was called krav manga, a martial art taught by the Israeli army, which Tanek had adapted to suit his own purposes). Breaking one man's nose, driving his fist so hard into it that there was nothing left of the bridge, Tanek had incapacitated another by arcing his forearm and crushing the man's windpipe with a crack that made De Falaise wince. It was then that De Falaise spotted an attacker creeping up on Tanek, knife drawn and ready to spring. He shouted out to the big man to warn him, but Tanek was already pivoting – with a grace that belied his size – and was unslinging what looked like a rifle. It wasn't until the two bolts had been fired, striking the man squarely in the chest, that De Falaise recognised it as a crossbow; but no ordinary one (modified by Tanek himself based on ancient Chinese Chu-ko-nu repeater designs, able to fire from a magazine without the need for single bolt reloading). The rest of the men fled from the scene after that, leaving Tanek and De Falaise alone.
Tanek had raised the crossbow, inserting another magazine, and for a moment De Falaise thought he might shoot him too. But no. Tanek walked over, kicking fallen chairs and bodies aside, and stood before him. Then, in that hybrid Southern European-Middle Eastern accent of his barely anyone got to hear, Tanek thanked him for the warning.
Taking a couple of bottles of whiskey and two glasses from behind the now deserted bar, De Falaise and Tanek drank and talked, though the larger man would only disclose the least amount of information about himself that he could get away with, all in that monotone voice of his. Information like the fact that he'd once worked as a torturer and knew every single pressure point on the body, especially those that caused the maximum of pain. De Falaise, in turn, told Tanek why he was there, what he was doing, and what he was about to do next.
"I've been in this business for some time, mon
ami, but have always had a craving to see the guns I sell put to better use. To build up an army of my own." He recalled joyous times as a child, playing with toy soldiers – when he wasn't constructing gallows out of Meccano, much to his parents' dismay – sending his troops into 'battle', relishing the authority it gave him even at that young age. "It strikes me that we can look upon this little… incident as either a setback or an opportunity," De Falaise had said, knocking back a shot of the whisky. "And I, for one, have always been an opportunist. There is much to gain from being organised where others are not, from being able to take advantage of a certain situation and use it fully. History teaches us that, if nothing else." And to emphasise his point, he quoted the Carpetbaggers at the end of the American Civil War, who had come from the North, exploiting the South's weakened state to gain money and power. He laughed when he saw Tanek's eyes glazing over. "I apologise. The subject has always fascinated me. History goes in cycles, that is what my old teacher once said. Now he was a dying breed of patriot."
The more he talked, about moving up into Europe, about gathering a band of men as he went, about taking their fair share of the glory on offer, the more De Falaise convinced himself that night. Before, he hadn't really had much of a clue what to do, but now, as he explained the basics of his spur of the moment plan, the more it sounded like the one and only course of action.
There was scope here to take control fully. But where to start? Germany? Italy? Or – De Falaise's dream – his homeland of France? But, as they were to discover, it would not prove so easy to achieve. Others, just like De Falaise, had already had the same idea. They were professionals and they'd organised themselves more quickly than he'd had a chance to. It was true that he'd recruited his core group during this sweep of Europe – like Henrik the German with a passion for fine cigars, silver-haired Dutchman Reinhart, an expert marksman, the Lithuanian Rudakas, the broad Italian Savero, and Javier, originally of Mexican descent but now operating out of Spain, who in spite of his belly was a mean fighter. All were former mercenaries, their allegiance given to power and riches, rather than any flag. But together they hardly constituted the army De Falaise had envisaged. And though they'd been lucky in acquiring some weapons and transportation, the group finding bikes easier to manoeuvre in the heat of guerrilla warfare, they'd also been thrashed any number of times and been forced to retreat, losing many good foot soldiers in the process.
