Light At The End | Book 2 | Light To Dark

by Benson, Tom

  Bill was astonished by the sight which greeted him next. He watched in amazement as the bush was pushed a little farther away and then the woman he knew as Patsy Mayne crouched and moved with stealth from the cave under cover of the bush. She was wearing clothing, but although it didn’t look like an animal hide, it was indistinct. The woman remained in a crouched position as she moved a short distance to the right away from her hidden cave and the large open cave. She gently eased a small bush away from the rock face to uncover a tiny opening—a third but much smaller cave entrance. Patsy crawled inside on her hands and knees.

  Bill was impressed because he’d noted the small bush on the left, but in the darkness, it had looked innocent and not as a cover to an opening. As he watched, one large and then two small items were pushed out of the small opening. These were followed by the woman who picked up her horde and went back into her original dwelling. It was only as Patsy paused at the entrance that it became clear what she was carrying—blackened carcasses. The large bush was pulled against the cave opening once again.

  If ever there were a time to be wide awake and alert, then this was it. Bill rubbed his tired, stinging eyes and took the opportunity to have breakfast, a hastily eaten protein bar washed down with a few sips of water.

  Not much time passed before the bush moved from the cave entrance again, and the cautious woman appeared and looked around. The bush was pushed out, but then Patsy disappeared inside, and a smaller person appeared in the entrance. A child of no more than five years old with long hair, wearing what appeared to be a dark-coloured dress. The youngster had toned arms and legs and an animal-like awareness as he or she slowly moved out from behind the bush and paused between the two large caves.

  Bill tried to focus in the early morning half-light, but even at such a short distance, the child and the outfit were not clear. By having his binoculars ready to use and lying right in front of his face, it was an excellent time to take a closer look at the strange pair and their dwelling. He used both hands to slowly raise the binoculars up to his eyes and gently adjusted the focus.

  The child, like the mother, had long and unkempt hair. It was hard to tell if it were a girl or a boy. Something undefinable suggested it was a girl. She slowly turned her head to left and right, occasionally squinting while her nostrils twitched so that she appeared more like a wild creature than a child. The neck and sleeves of he garment she wore were far too big, and it was only when Bill appreciated the item without considering the child that he realised it was a T-shirt.

  Bill was concentrating on the scene, and the child moved to the side. She, continually observed her surroundings, like a sentry. It was when she turned he saw that the two dark lines over her shoulders were the straps of a small backpack. It could be the one that Patsy had with her when she took her chances and escaped out of the portal in the tunnel.

  The girl, as Bill had decided the child to be, was carrying a long stick in her left hand and when there was a whisper from within the cave she moved forward and the stick became clear—a bow, strung and ready for use. When she stepped clear of the large bush, the contents poking up from one side of the backpack made sense—arrows in an attached quiver.

  Patsy made her appearance, and this brought new questions for Bill as the light increased slightly. Using the binoculars, he was able to see the woman’s outfit clearly. Patsy was wearing a camouflaged combat jacket, but her legs were bare like the child. Strapped over her shoulders was a sizeable camouflaged bergen, not unlike the one which Sandy and Flint had given Bill.

  The woman crouched and pushed the bush back into place in front of the cave entrance. She whispered to the child. Patsy moved back, still crouching and watched as her daughter placed her bow on the ground and then used both hands to deal with something on the ground. Whatever it might be was below the level of grass and undergrowth so was unsighted to Bill.

  The pair stood, and Patsy placed a hand on the child’s shoulder while whispering something. The child, again with her bow in her hand acknowledged what had been said, without a display of emotion. If she’d been admonished for doing wrong, she’d didn’t show it, and likewise, if she’d been congratulated, there was no smile.

  Bill was reminded of the need to remain on high alert, and he recalled Flint’s close call with the arrow.

  Patsy was carrying a bow, but before setting off, she pulled an arrow from the quiver strapped against her bergen. She nocked the arrow in the bowstring, nodded for the child to arm herself in a similar manner, and they were ready to face whatever lay ahead. Patsy bent down and lifted a large bundle which looked like something wrapped in animal skin and then the pair set off. They both carried their bows one-handed with an arrow ready to be released—an acquired skill.

  The child walked behind, and within a few metres of leaving the cave, the youngster tugged free a branch which contained a few leaves. As she followed her mother, the child trailed the branch behind herself, brushing it lightly from side to side in a practised technique. She effectively removed any sign of their passing.

  Whatever she’d done in the past and whatever her morals, Bill felt a begrudging respect for this woman. She was not the person everybody had imagined when Norman and Chloe had talked of some eccentric hermit. Patsy was more than a person who built the occasional simple shelter in the forest all those years ago. However she’d reached the level she had achieved, Patsy Mayne, the serial murderer, was an accomplished backwoods inhabitant. She would clearly be a capable and deadly adversary. Sadly, it appeared that the child had been taught far more than basic survival.

  Bill sensed that daylight was arriving now with a vengeance, so he remained in position for several minutes after the strange pair had departed the area. He had no immediate interest in the caves. He also had no desire to make himself known by getting too close to the wild woman and her deadly offspring. He remained off to the rear and downwind as he followed at a distance where he could barely see the movement of the pair.

  It was an hour before Patsy, and her daughter paused. Bill watched from fifty metres away, crouched in dense undergrowth. He saw them kneel alternately at the freshwater pond, taking handfuls of water. While one was drinking, the other remained alert. Seeing prints later might make it appear that they knelt their together. They did so individually, engaging mutual support and defence.

  The freshwater pond was the meeting place which had been suggested in the brief message that Sandy and Flint had left at the cave. Bill knew what the note said because he’d written it.

  ‘Patsy,

  A few of us are aware of your presence. We are not savages.

  Two sunrises after this note, two people will wait at the freshwater pond during daylight ready to meet and talk with you.

  Bill.’

  While the two at the pond were drinking, it was a logical time for Bill to do likewise. He had just packed away his water bottle when Patsy moved a short distance from the pond. She waved to the child, who squatted and fiddled with something in the bushes near the base of a tree. It was a similar activity to what she’d done outside the cave entrance.

  Patsy stood and used one hand to indicate the area between the top of her head and her waistline. The child nodded but again showed no emotion. A whispered word and a hand briefly on her shoulder was the final act before they checked their weapons were ready for use.

  Two minutes later, she and her daughter had walked away from the area around to the far side of the pond. They both squatted near the base of a tree to manipulate something in the undergrowth. The mother nodded her approval before looking around again, and then she stood. They left the area of the pond and continued down the gradient through the dense forest towards Loch Awe.

  Again, like the cave, Bill couldn’t afford the time to investigate the pond area but allowed the pair to gain distance before he continued following them. He was reminded of his military exploits. He recalled occasions when he’d been one of a pair following terrorists on their external patrols to set
up traps for allied nations’ soldiers. For so many reasons, this task didn’t feel so different. Occasionally, back in those dark days, it wasn’t uncommon to see children of a young age being taught the black arts of booby-traps and ambushes.

  For two stressful hours, Bill followed, pausing when they paused, drinking when they drank and moving when they moved. The ex-Serviceman’s antics were more akin to stalking than simply shadowing. Bill knew it would only take one snapping twig, and all of his efforts would be for nothing.

  It was almost three hours after leaving the caves when between the trees there was the occasional sparkle of Loch Awe’s waters. The sun no longer had as much area to warm in this region, but where it fell it made the world feel almost normal.

  To avoid the risk of reflection, Bill resisted the use of the binoculars and dropped back to one hundred metres distance from his subjects. He was pleased he’d stayed away. As Patsy disappeared over a grassy bank, the child turned and looked slowly left and right between the trees. She occasionally paused as if she’d seen something—unnerving to a person following.

  A few minutes passed. The girl climbed over the embankment. She disappeared into the narrow area between the edge of the forest and the banks of the loch.

  Bill waited for a few minutes and then with stealth moved forward until he reached the grassy bank. It took a few seconds to rise up screened by a bush before he climbed over and saw the pair together, about one hundred metres away in the distance, disappearing from sight.

  14 - Home and Away

  Instead of working up through the low forest region and onto the steep gradient again, Bill walked along the coastline of Loch Awe. In the opposite direction to which the woman and child had gone. He’d seen all he had to see of Patsy for the time being, and now he had to work out what to report when he arrived back at Auchcarn. The walk along the banks of the massive expanse of water was relaxing. Bill had gone over twenty-four hours without sleep.

  He paused at the water’s edge and sat on a substantial rounded boulder to rest, eat a protein bar and sip water. It felt other-worldly as he listened to the rippling water near the shoreline. Apart from the ever-present blackness of most of the sky, the welcome sight of the two gaps remained. Both were getting more extensive and closer to meeting to produce a single enormous hole in the post-nuclear cloud.

  “How much do I pass on?” Bill said aloud. “Perhaps it should all be done on a ‘need to know’ basis.”

  Bill thought back to his first outdoor venture only a couple of weeks previously. After five years of the group’s self-imposed incarceration inside the mountain, it had been prophetic that one of the children was the first to spot a rabbit from the glass corridor. The adults had all been excited, even when it was decided that for safety reasons no-one would go out for a further year.

  When that momentous day arrived, Bill had gone outside and stood a few metres away from the portal for an hour, doing nothing more than breathing and listening to the bees. He’d tapped on the portal door, gave a nod that he was okay and then borrowed Sandy’s multi-purpose fishing line and trekked down the mountain alone. It had taken a couple of hours to reach the loch. Bill had returned triumphant carrying four sizeable fish on his return at midday.

  “Once more into the breach,” he murmured as he sat now watching and listening to the water lazily lapping at the shoreline.

  Bill turned and looked to his front at the majesty of Auchcarn. Instead of thinking about the walk across the flat meadows, grassland and the hillside before the strenuous climb, Bill smiled as he admired the neat and almost uniform zig-zag of the pathway. After a wide area of open grassland in front of his position, a straight two hundred-metre stretch of path led to the long and winding trail up the mountainside. Even at such a distance, Bill could see where the shelters had been built. To anybody else, they were simply a couple of small dark patches higher up.

  Bill raised his binoculars and focused on the journey ahead of him. The shelters were tiny but precise dark oblong shapes in the distance. Although he knew it was there, the glass balcony was built into the face of the mountain’s surface so at this range it merely looked like a tiny, misshapen overhang. The original plan by the installation architect to make the balcony blend in had been good.

  Before setting off on the long climb ahead, Bill turned and looked left and right across Loch Awe once more. “Perhaps one day not too far away you’ll play a bigger part in our lives.” He turned to face uphill. Was he addressing the wild woman and her daughter, or the loch? Bill wasn’t sure himself as he set off for home.

  Bill heard a faint shout when he’d been walking for almost two hours. He paused and used his binoculars to survey the area ahead and farther up the gradient. The shelters were clearly seen from this point, and he’d been on the pathway for some time.

  Somebody was walking down the zig-zag route, and another person was farther up the hillside. At this distance, it was difficult to make out who the people might be. Although the crisscrossing nature of the simple path added to the overall length, it was appreciably easier than the effort required to walk on grass and heather. Bill paused at the next turn as he was about to head from left to right. He tried the binoculars again and could see that it was Fiona coming down to meet him. She’d arrived at the area where the shelters had been built, and she was waiting for him.

  The person higher up the mountainside was Flint, but he’d already stopped. He appeared to be sitting at the edge of the path.

  “Bodyguard duty,” Bill murmured as he waved and then set off again with a lighter heart. It would take another half hour to reach the shelters where Fiona was patiently sitting.

  “Hello, lover,” Fiona called when Bill was within easy shouting distance.

  “Hi,” Bill called casually as if he’d been out for a morning stroll. “I’m glad you came down this far because I might have got lost.”

  Fiona’s laughter rang out from above. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  Bill looked up and waved to Flint, who waved back and then set off home, his bodyguard duties completed.

  When Bill arrived at the shelters and Fiona approached him they embraced and then sat for a while on the grassy upper part of the pathway. They both gazed down the mountain and out across the loch.

  Fiona said, “A few people asked about you at breakfast, but I said you’d come back late last night and then gone out early to take another look in the forest. I joked that you might also go fishing afterwards.”

  “Thank you. I take it that Flint was your guardian angel so that you could come down this far?”

  “Yes, he wouldn’t let me come alone.” She laughed. “He said I might be attacked by a shrew, a field mouse, a rabbit or some other highly dangerous wild creature.” She smiled and took his hand. “What was the result of your one-man mission?”

  “If anyone asks you can say that I’ll be giving an update.”

  “How much can you tell them?”

  “All the community has to know is that there was more than one person in the forest nearby, but it looks like they’ve gone. I’ll deal with our official line on the subject and then nobody else has to worry about what to say.”

  “Will Sandy and Flint have to go out there again?”

  “I might go out with one of them, but it will be less dangerous now.”

  After another few minutes of the peace and quiet, they wandered up the pathway.

  Before resting, Bill met Sandy and Flint together out on the patio to give them a full brief before he slept.

  “Right, mate,” Sandy said, “what can you tell us about your night out?”

  Bill explained about his one-man recce and O.P. but didn’t say how strenuous he’d found it. He told of smelling the woodsmoke, and the meat cooked and then gave a brief account of the journey at first light to follow the woman and child down through the forest.

  Flint said, “Was she wearing the sort of thing we suspected, you know, like animal skin?”

&nb
sp; “It was barely light when they set off, but it was Patsy, and whatever she was wearing was loose-fitting with light and dark patches over the surface. She also had a large sack of some sort strapped over her shoulders.” Bill was economical with the truth, firmly believing what they’d been discussing only a few minutes earlier about how much people should know. “The child was wearing a one-piece thing, but again, it was hard to distinguish the material. Suffice to say that they weren’t naked, which means they’re living off the land and the wildlife.”

  The two soldiers nodded soberly and waited patiently to hear more. In Bill’s opinion, there was no need for his friends to know that Patsy was wearing a combat jacket. They also didn’t have to know she wore a sizeable military-style bergen on her back, or that her child was wearing a military T-shirt.

  “They were both carrying a load which made me wonder about their intentions,” Bill continued. “Before leaving the cave and again at the pond, Patsy and the child paused. They fiddled about with something in the undergrowth. I knew that in both cases, it could be checked later.”

  Sandy said, “Which direction did they take when they left the pond?”

  “Downhill towards the loch.”

  Flint said, “She must be bloody fearless out there.”

  “They both have a longbow and arrows.”

  “Both?” Flint said, and his eyes opened wide.

  “Yes, the child’s bow is obviously on a smaller scale, but it looks pretty sturdy, and she carries it naturally. On more than once occasion I saw her rapidly nock an arrow and look around.”

  “Holy shit,” Sandy said. “You were right before, Bill. We can’t afford to think of them as a woman and child, they are two wild people except that one is younger.”

  “Did they go as far as the loch?” Flint said.

  “Yes, mate, they went over an embankment at the bottom end of the forest and a short way along the bank of the loch.” Bill paused and looked from one soldier to the other. “For a short while I couldn’t see them under the overhanging foliage, but then they appeared again as they departed.”