Mila took a step closer. A carpet of its dead friends lay at its feet, but the beast did not register the significance of this any more than it registered how close it was to its own demise. The only thing it was interested in was its prey. Mila could hear the sounds of the forest again. The birds were returning to their morning song. She glared down at the hellish abomination and gently tapped the swords on the roof of the car, centimetres away from where it was standing, taunting it. Then, like a springing viper, Mila plunged both blades through its eye sockets at the same time. Two gory protrusions exploded from the back of its skull, and the creature froze there in suspended animation before Mila withdrew the swords and it collapsed to the ground like a bundle of blood-soaked laundry.
Mila stepped down onto the bonnet then jumped to the ground, avoiding the piled-up corpses. She wiped her swords on the clothes of the cleanest looking beast then returned them to their scabbards. A clunk and creak made her look up to see one of the back doors opening. Robyn slowly emerged, her eyes wide as she looked around at the devastation. “Err … that was … amazing.”
“It all comes down to training and discipline.”
Robyn looked at Mila who had not even broken a sweat. “There were loads of them though.”
“There were twenty.”
“You counted them?”
“You should always know your enemy. How many there are as well as who they are, yes?”
“I suppose.”
“No suppose. Yes, you must. Now, come,” she said, walking over to pick up the wheelchair that she had thrown to the side of the road. “We must get back home.”
Robyn climbed in, and the two of them were on their way again. They came across just a small handful of creatures on the journey home, all of which were dispatched quickly and efficiently by Mila. The sun was high in the sky as they reached the cobbled footpath that led up to Mila’s house. Robyn climbed out, and Mila found her a branch to use for support. They took the uphill journey slowly, and Robyn stopped a few times to cough. When they finally stepped through the door of the small cottage, a wave of relief swept over them both.
“Thank you,” Robyn said, almost collapsing onto one of the armchairs.
“Yes, yes. You have thanked me already, and I’ve already told you, no need. Now we will have lunch.” Mila headed into the kitchen and returned a moment later with two tins. “All day breakfast in a can. This will give you some energy.”
Robyn stood up and walked over to the sofa where she had spent the last several weeks. “I suppose I’ve got some way to go yet before I’m better,” she said sadly.
Mila looked across at her then returned her attention to the two tins. She pulled the rings on each, opening the lids and pouring the contents into the waiting pan before placing it on the hob. She carefully put another shovel full of smokeless coal into the stove and went to sit down. “You do not feel sorry for yourself. You work to start feeling better. From what you have told me about your sister, she is clever and a warrior. She will have got out of there. When you are well, when your strength is back, we will find her together, but we cannot take stupid risks like that again.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Suppose nothing. I am right. We will eat, you will take tablets and rest.”
“You sound like my old headmistress,” Robyn said with a smile.
“Hopefully I will do a better job than she did. You left school stubborn and dense, not listening to reason.”
Robyn laughed until the laughter degenerated into another bout of coughing. She finally managed to bring it under control and looked towards Mila with a smile still on her face. “Yeah, good luck with that. Wren tried; it obviously hasn’t worked.”
“I like a challenge. Growing up, we adopted a rescue dog. She was almost blind and partially deaf. It was a long and painstaking process to train her. Teaching you will only be marginally more difficult. Granted, the dog was more intelligent and picked things up quicker, but I have a lot of patience.”
Robyn started laughing again and stuck her middle finger up, causing a smile to break on Mila’s face. “As a matter of fact, I’m a quick learner when it’s something I’m interested in.”
“Well, considering the journey we may have ahead of us, let’s hope I can make this interesting for both of our sakes.”
chapter 7
Robyn spent the following three days on the sofa, only getting up occasionally to grab some fresh air at the door or use the bathroom. On the fourth morning, Mila walked into the living room with a fresh change of clothes for her. “Today, we start your training.”
“Err, okay,” Robyn replied. Her cough had subsided dramatically, and although she had lost weight and was still quite weak from the previous four weeks, she felt a lot better than she had done. “So, do I get my own swords or what?”
“Ha! Yes, very amusing. First, we have to get you strong enough to lift swords never mind use them. We must build your muscles up and start putting meat on your bones again.”
“Okay, so what’s the training?”
“This morning, we are going to walk into the village and back again. Then, this afternoon, we will go foraging and maybe catch some fish.”
“That’s the training?”
“Yes.”
“Not exactly what I had in mind.”
“The last time you went out, you got out of breath walking a few metres. We do this slowly.”
Robyn’s shoulders drooped. “Okay.”
It was warm but overcast as they left the house. They made their way down the cobbled path and to the track. “How are you feeling?” Mila asked.
“Fine,” Robyn replied. She was a little out of breath but nothing like what she had been the last time she’d made the journey.
The two of them carried on along the road. They had only been walking for a short time when the outskirts of the village came into view. As they got closer, the stink of death tainted the air. “No matter how many times I come down here, I always hope that I won’t smell it. But I always do.”
“You didn’t get rid of the bodies?”
“Ah yes, and advertise the fact that someone was still here if those men ever came back through.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Yes, I am right. I buried Mrs Robertson in her garden beneath her favourite rosebush, but they would not notice that.”
They walked in silence to the end of the small village, looking sadly and respectfully at the strewn bodies. Birds and rodents had picked at each one; in places, Mila and Robyn had to cover their mouths and noses as the stench became too strong. “I wish I could say this was the worst thing I’d ever seen, but these guys are animals, I’ve seen much worse.”
“Don’t accuse them of being animals. Animals are pure. They kill to survive, to protect. They kill to eat. They do not kill for the sake of it. Only humans do that.”
“Not all humans.”
“Very well, only humans are capable of that.”
They paused at the far end of the road, looking back over the devastation. “Why did we come here?”
“It is a good walk, but I wanted to remind you of what we are facing out there, not just the infected but … this.”
“You don’t need to remind me about this.” Robyn turned to look at Mila. “I can’t get them out of my head. Every day when I wake up, that image is there,” she said, tapping her temple. “I can’t get rid of it, no matter how I try. I will never forget that killing ground. Men, women, children all executed. Lying there like these people. Nothing more than food for crows and rats. It will always be with me, and knowing that Wren’s out there without me and could come up against this scum is why I need to find her.”
“You are angry.”
“Damn right I’m angry.”
“Gut. Anger is gut. Use it. That is what we need to make you strong again.”
Suddenly, Robyn became a little more energised. The hatred she had for the Loch Uig men burned like a supernov
a. “Come on, let’s head back. I want to get started.”
“We do not rush this, it is impo—”
“Screw that, Mila. I’ve rested enough. It’s time to start fighting back.” Robyn began marching down the street, and a self-satisfied smile appeared on Mila’s face. She jogged to catch up with her friend, and the two of them walked back to the house in silence. When they reached the small white cottage, a thick layer of perspiration clung to Robyn’s forehead. Her breathing was heavy, but the steely determined look she had on her face back in the village was still there.
“We should let you rest a while.”
“I’ll rest later.”
“The force is strong in you,” Mila said, doing her best Yoda impersonation.
“Yeah? You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Mila led Robyn through to her bedroom. She opened her wardrobe, but rather than being full of clothes, it was full of swords, knives and other weapons. She pulled out two items, handed one to Robyn and kept the other for herself. “This is a bokken,” she said then unfastened the straps to her scabbards and placed them in the wardrobe before heading back through the house to the garden.
Robyn stood there looking at the object she had been handed for a moment then finally followed Mila outside.
“What the hell is this? It’s made of wood.”
“It is a training sword. You want us to start off with real swords?” Mila screamed and brought the bokken over her head, aiming directly at Robyn’s skull.
Robyn brought her own weapon up with lightning speed, blocking the blow. “What the hell are you playing at? You could have smashed my head in.”
“You have quick reflexes, this is good.”
Robyn snarled and whipped the wooden sword around, aiming for Mila’s hip. A smile appeared on her opponent’s face and in one fluid movement Mila brought her bokken down, parrying the blow with virtually no effort. “Aarrgghh!” Robyn screamed as she brought the sword up to deliver the same hammer blow Mila had yielded with her first strike. “Aagghh!” She let out a small cry of pain. Before she had the chance to bring the stick back down, Mila had tapped her hard in the ribs.
Infuriated, Robyn swiped down with all the power she could muster. Mila sidestepped the blow as if she was ballroom dancing, and Robyn toppled forward onto the ground, the bokken flying from her hand. Mila gently rested her own wooden sword on Robyn’s back. “Anger drives you to the battlefield, but it will not win the battle.”
“Screw that!” Robyn shuffled forward, picked up the bokken once more and swung it like a bat, aiming for Mila’s side. The young German woman smirked, took a step back and watched as the bokken sailed through the air in front of her. She stepped forward and knocked her own weapon against Robyn’s hip twice before retreating.
“I think maybe we should stop for a moment, yes?”
“No!” Robyn roared, swinging the wooden sword back around towards Mila. This time, Mila ducked beneath it, aiming her weapon towards Robyn’s ankles. “Aagghh!” Robyn’s feet were knocked out from under her, and she went sprawling, her bokken flying to the other side of the small garden. She started to scramble towards it once more.
“Robyn, Stop!” Mila ordered. “Enough.”
Robyn halted, the volume of Mila’s command taking her by surprise. She was out of breath, and her entire body felt like it had been dipped in warm saltwater. She suddenly realised that her anger had consumed her, and she slumped to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly.
“No. It’s good. It’s good to see how much energy you can muster considering your body is not in peak form. This shows that a fire burns inside you, but you must learn to harness it properly.”
“You’re right,” she replied, still trying to catch her breath.
“Look, we will have a cup of tea, come back out here and start again. I will take you through some of the fundamentals. This afternoon, we will take two rods and go fishing.”
Robyn was about to say that she didn’t want to go fishing, that all she wanted to do was train, learn how to fight using this new weapon, but she realised that Mila was right. “Okay,” she replied.
✽ ✽ ✽
Mila did as promised; she taught Robyn some of the basics, they had a spot of lunch, then they headed to the river where Mila had first found her new friend. The sun had broken through, and there was not a cloud in the sky as they silently sat on the bank with their lines in the flowing water.
“How are you feeling?” Mila asked.
“I feel fine.”
“Uh-huh! How are you feeling?”
“A little weak. My ribs hurt a bit. I’ve not coughed much today, which is good.”
“You have turned a corner, I think. This is very positive.”
“I feel a lot better than I did.”
“What happened this morning?”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“It is alright, but I have not seen anger like that in a very long time. What happened, Robyn?”
Robyn looked out to where she had cast her line then turned to look at Mila. “It’s just the thought of her out there, without me. We were never really as close as we should have been growing up. She’s like this super athlete. She was really clever. Everything she did she was amazing at. I felt like a failure at the side of her. I suppose I resented her. I resented the attention she got. Not consciously, but it kind of reared its head now and then.”
“That is only normal.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But anyway, when all this started, I was still a total bitch to her, but she ignored it. She ignored what I was and brought something out in me. She was like always positive no matter how negative I was, no matter how much I took the piss out of her. We grew closer and closer. We became this amazing team. We did stuff together that I would never have been able to even think about doing before. The fact that we’re not together anymore … it makes me sad and frustrated and scared and angry. I’m not there to look out for her. I’m not there to help if something goes wrong. Because whatever problems we faced, when we got out of Edinburgh, we always had each other’s backs.”
“But you say this Georgie woman, she is ex-military. She will be a good companion to your sister until you are reunited.”
“It’s not the same.”
“I understand. We will start afresh tomorrow. We will focus. Before you know it, you will be an expert swordswoman.”
“Well, I doubt that somehow, but as long as I know how to handle one, that’s all that matters.” They both cast their eyes to the water. “I miss my bow,” Robyn said, almost out of the blue.
“Maybe we can find another for you.”
“I suppose that’s possible. There must be some more archery clubs around somewhere.”
“Don’t think of this now. Clear your head. Relax, enjoy the afternoon.”
Robyn nodded and returned to watching her line. “Mila?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Why is that important?”
“It isn’t. I’m just curious.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Well. I don’t know. You look young, but then you seem to have had an awful lot of life experience and, y’know, you own your own house and stuff.”
Mila smiled. “I am twenty-four. I fitted a lot into my years. In my teens, I was making money as a graphic artist, doing book covers and album covers. Then I started showing some of my paintings in galleries. I was lucky, I managed to put away a lot of cash.”
“How come you moved over here by yourself?”
“I came for a boy … a man … a boy. He was thirty, but you have to remember, up to the age of fifty, you should always divide a man’s years by three to get their true mental age. After fifty they are just old and grumpy, and they keep getting older and grumpier.”
Robyn let out a laugh. “You sound like an expert.”
“I am an observer of life. He told me he loved me, and I believed him, right up until I came home
early from a trip to Germany and found him in bed with an eighteen-year-old student.”
“What a bastard.”
“Yes.”
“So how come you stayed here?”
“The easy thing, the safe thing, would have been to go back home to my family, but that would have been the coward’s way of dealing with it. I put it down to a bad experience, I bought this place and moved across from Glasgow.”
“That’s pretty cool. I think I’d have gone home.”
Mila looked at Robyn. “No, I don’t think you would. I see a fighter in you. I see a young woman who has left behind the insecurities of her past.”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“It is the truth.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The next morning, Mila woke up with a smile on her face. She and Robyn had stayed up until after one o’clock. They had spent a lovely day together, caught fish, cleaned and prepared them, then eaten a hearty meal. Mila had broken out a nice bottle of Pinot Noir and they had got a little tipsy.
It was the first time Mila had drunk anything since she had heard about her family. She knew if she started drinking alone, in all likelihood she would not stop. She had, however, kept the wine rack stocked just in case the urge became overwhelming.
She climbed out of bed and headed into the living room. “Wakey-w—” The smile immediately left her face. The sheets Robyn used had been neatly folded. The place looked immaculate, and there was absolutely no sign of her friend. The window was slightly open, and the fresh morning air had already replaced the fragrant smell of red wine from the night before. Oh my God, she’s gone! She’s left me. Mila’s heart started racing. Then, suddenly, the sound of a grunt floated in on the breeze. Panic turned to confusion as she walked to the window and looked out. There was nothing to see, but then she heard another noise.
The End of Everything (Book 7): The End of Everything Page 5
