No Dominion: An action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller (Plague Times Trilogy)

by Louise Welsh

  Lucy risked a glance over her shoulder at Stevie. Her face had lost some of its hardness.

  ‘I would have made him help earlier, if I’d known.’ She turned slowly until she was facing the gun barrel and held her child out to Stevie. It had stopped crying and gave a drowsy smile. ‘Put down your gun. Hold Mercy instead.’

  Stevie lowered her rifle.

  ‘Hold her,’ Lucy persisted.

  Magnus stepped forward. ‘I’ll take her if you like.’ He slid his gun into his jacket pocket and reached for the child.

  It happened quickly. Rees grabbed a pistol from the back of his belt and pointed it at Stevie. He risked a quick glance at his wife. ‘Get that mad bitch’s gun.’

  The harshness in her father’s voice set Mercy crying again. Lucy jiggled her on her hip as she took the rifle from Stevie.

  Rees gave Magnus a shove. ‘Let’s leave the girls to talk make-up and babies, while we get the guns from your boat.’

  Stevie was about to say that she had invented the cache of weapons, but Lucy shoved the crying child into her arms. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and pointed it at her husband. ‘Drop it.’

  Rees looked at her. He took the roll-up he had made earlier from his top pocket and put it unlit between his lips. ‘You could hurt someone with that.’

  There was a small click as Lucy released the safety catch. A cloud shifted. Tiny shards of broken glass scattered across the terminal’s tarmac glinted silver in the sudden sunlight. Across the bay gulls rode on air pockets, swooping and climbing through the sky, flashes of white against the blue.

  Rees said, ‘Lucy, for fuck’s sake—’

  ‘Don’t swear in front of the baby. I want her first word to be “Mummy”, not “fuck”, “shit”, “cunt”, “thief”, or “selfish-bloody-child-peddling-daddy”.’

  Rees’s voice was soft and coaxing. ‘Lucy …’

  His wife shook her head to show him there was no point in appealing to her.

  ‘You tried to make a deal over missing children … a missing baby. How could you, Rees?’

  ‘I told you, I—’

  ‘Don’t say anything.’ Lucy looked at her husband along the gunsight. ‘We’re all going inside and we’re going to leave our weapons by the door. If you want Mercy and me to stick around you will tell these people anything you know that might help them find their children. Is that clear?’

  For a moment Stevie thought Rees was going to argue, but he lowered his gun. ‘Everything I do is for you and Mercy.’

  ‘Not much point in chasing us away then, is there?’

  Lucy emptied the rifle of cartridges. She walked past her husband to the shipping container and went inside, propping the gun inside the door. Rees’s slumped shoulders reminded Stevie of the way Pistol hung his head after she had caught him in some act of disobedience. The trader followed his wife, disarming his pistol as he went.

  Magnus looked at Stevie. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ She held the crying child out to him.

  Magnus stroked a tear from Mercy’s cheek with the tip of his finger, but did not take her.

  ‘What would you have done if the gun had gone off?’

  Stevie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Killed myself, I suppose.’

  ‘Suicide isn’t your style. You’re a survivor. A nuclear bomb could explode and you’d still be standing, bruised but unbroken.’

  ‘Like a cockroach.’ She tried to pass Magnus the baby again. He turned away and she realised that he was angry.

  Magnus took the clip from his gun. ‘You hold on to her. Maybe it’ll do you good to be aware of someone else’s heartbeat for a while.’

  Stevie followed him into the container, still carrying Mercy. She thought about taking the knife from her boot and placing it inside the door with the rest of their arsenal, but the weight of it was a comfort and she kept it there.

  Twenty-Three

  Lucy lit a storm lantern and they followed her past the imprisoned ridgebacks, which greeted them with slavering enthusiasm, and through the complex of shipping containers, into a series of rooms loaded with sealed boxes. Rees unlocked and locked each connecting door. Every tumbler that clicked home tightened a screw in Magnus’s chest. He breathed through his mouth and kept his eyes on Rees’s keys. Mercy was asleep, her head resting on Stevie’s shoulder. The presence of the couple’s child should have reassured him, but the containers’ metal walls were a weight on his lungs.

  The storm lantern cast wedges of light, illuminating boxes stacked in the shadows: Copper wire, AAA Batteries, AA Batteries, Smoke Detectors, Aluminium, Dried Milk, Freeze Dried Rations, Pasta, Baked Beans, Tonic Water, Bottled Water …

  The merchandise had been arranged with similar logic to now abandoned supermarket aisles. Magnus wondered if they would reach a room labelled Fresh Meat and find themselves suddenly thrust onto butcher’s hooks. There had been stories of cannibalism after the Sweats. He had not thought he believed them, but they came back to him now. Men and women held captive for their flesh. He looked at Mercy, a white scrap in the dimness. Who was to say that she belonged to the couple? Perhaps her real parents had fallen fate to butchery; cut and jointed.

  He tried to laugh at himself, but the containers’ roofs were only a hand’s stretch from his head. The air was stale. He recalled stories of stowaways vainly trying to cross borders, suffocating to death inside the backs of container lorries. He stared at Stevie’s back, the tanned nape of her neck, but could not tell if she shared his unease.

  Phone Chargers, Sim Cards, 3AMP Fuses, Routers, Candle Bulbs, CDs, Headphones …

  Lucy’s lantern wavered as she waited for Rees to open yet another door.

  Stevie said, ‘Quite a collection.’

  Rees unfastened the padlock. ‘Who’s to know what might be useful in the future? We can throw everything away, leave it to rot or we can preserve it. At the very least it might tell future civilisations something about how we used to live.’

  Lucy looked over her shoulder at Stevie and Magnus. ‘One of the things I like about Rees is his optimism. He can imagine future generations.’

  Rees was holding the door open, ready to lock it after them. ‘How can you doubt it when we have a member of the next generation right here?’ He touched his sleeping daughter’s hand as Stevie carried her through.

  The new cabin was different from the rest. Boxes were still stacked along its sides but its metal floors had been covered in rugs. A couch and a couple of easy chairs clustered around a wooden coffee table in the centre of the space.

  Lucy set the lantern on the table. ‘Take a seat.’

  Stevie deposited the child onto the couch and herself into an easy chair. ‘What is this? A panic room?’

  ‘Got it in one.’ Rees sat beside Mercy and lifted her onto his lap. The child stirred, but did not wake. ‘I got the idea from a movie I watched once. High rollers used to have them. A place to hide out with your valuables if something bad goes down.’ He pulled a throw from the back of the couch and laid it gently over Mercy. ‘The ferry port is a good place to trade. People pass through. But that makes us vulnerable. I don’t want anyone knowing how much gear I’ve got and I don’t want them knowing that Lucy and Mercy exist. As far as any visitors are concerned, I’m just a sad old git who lives alone with his dogs, useful if you need provisions to see you on your way, but not worth ripping off.’

  ‘You’d think he was Josef Fritzl the way he keeps us hidden.’ Lucy sat on the couch beside her husband. She squeezed his hand. It was hard to believe that only a few minutes ago she had threatened him with a gun.

  Magnus knuckled his forehead; shifting skin against the bone. A headache wavered beneath his skull. This must be how it felt to be locked in a submarine, plunged beneath an ocean’s depths. He pictured their guns, abandoned by the door, inside the first container.

  ‘You’d be trapped if anything happened.’

  ‘Cool it, Rees.’ Lucy delved into a box, took out four cans of Coca-Cola
and gave them each one. ‘You’re making him nervous.’

  ‘These are emergency rations.’ Rees shoved his can back at her.

  Lucy sidestepped him. ‘I dare say this feels like an emergency to them. Their kids are missing, remember?’ She popped the lid of her can, took a sip and grimaced. ‘Old-style capitalism. If you thought that was bad wait till you get a taste of post-Sweats economics.’ She saw Magnus hesitating, took the can from his hand and swapped it for hers. ‘I’m not trying to poison you.’

  Magnus lowered himself into the spare armchair. The Coke tasted horrible; warm and aluminium-tainted, but it was a flavour of the old life: hot, dusty summer pavements; the smell of diesel; bass-thumping-eardrum-busting car stereos.

  Stevie clicked open her can. She put it to her ear, listened to the fizz of out-of-sell-by-date bubbles and then drank. ‘Thanks.’ She looked at Lucy. ‘Sorry for frightening you.’

  Lucy’s face set. ‘You were taking a big chance. I would have shot you if I could.’

  ‘I know.’ Stevie’s voice was soft. ‘I had no intention of shooting you.’

  Magnus set his drink on the table. ‘We don’t have much time.’ He looked at Rees. ‘You mentioned a woman with an injured eye. Had you seen her before?’

  The trader shook his head. ‘Not that I recall and I would recall her. She was damaged goods, but she was a looker.’ He stole a quick apologetic glance at his wife. ‘The men with her were less memorable, but I make a point of remembering everyone who passes through. I hadn’t seen them before.’

  Magnus said, ‘What makes you so sure they planned to traffic the kids?’

  Rees leaned back on the couch. He brushed his sleeping daughter’s fuzz of hair gently with his fingertips.

  ‘They were being too nice to them. It was excessive. I’ve got cartons of clothes in one of the outhouses. I let the teenagers rummage in there while we sorted out provisions for their trip. They came back dressed like loons – silk scarfs, crazy colours, hats, feathers. They looked like they were on their way to Woodstock in sixty-nine.’

  Lucy whispered, ‘Kids playing dress-up.’

  Rees ignored her. ‘The woman was all over them, primping and pimping. She wanted to know if I had any make-up. I pointed her to a tea chest of the stuff. She took what she needed and showed the girls how to put it on. She even suggested the boys try some lipstick.’

  Shuggie was vain, but Magnus could not imagine him in lipstick.

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘No, they pretended to be full of swagger, but they were shy.’ Rees met Magnus’s eyes. ‘They seemed like nice kids.’

  Mercy shifted on her father’s lap. She started to gurn and he passed her to Lucy who pulled up her top and put the child to her breast. He said, ‘That woman was basting them like a Christmas turkey.’

  Magnus tamped down the urge to ask more about Shug. ‘What can you tell us about Bjarne?’

  Rees was playing with his daughter’s feet, letting the child curl her toes around his finger and then pulling it away. The child giggled, but the Cornishman’s face was serious.

  ‘Bjarne’s a blowhard. He boasts about how he’s got Orkney tied up, but there isn’t much island trade to speak of. You guys seem to have pretty much what you need – except for the occasional nostalgic luxury. The last thing I traded him was a few crates of out-of-date Stella Artois. I thought it tasted like piss at the best of times, but he seemed confident it would go down well.’

  Magnus remembered the Easter celebrations, the pain in his head the following morning.

  ‘It did. What did he give you in return?’

  ‘A young ram. He said he’d had a hell of a job getting it over on the boat.’

  Magnus said, ‘Sounds like a deal in your favour.’

  Rees shrugged. ‘Stella’s a finite resource. The Sweats passed sheep by, so they’re hardly an endangered species.’ He looked from Stevie to Magnus. ‘Do you think he’s involved with your missing kids?’

  Magnus tipped the warm Coke to his lips. ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘You’re looking for them and asking about him. Is Bjarne mixed up in this somehow?’

  ‘You could say that.’ Magnus set his can back on the table. ‘He’s dead. Someone took the top of his head off with a twelve bore.’

  Lucy whispered, ‘Shit.’

  Rees took his rolling papers and tobacco from his pocket and started to put a cigarette together. If he was surprised by the news he did not show it. ‘I only met Bjarne a few times. I thought he was a prick, but most people I meet are pricks. It doesn’t mean they deserve to get murdered. The last time I saw him, he told me he had a big deal going down. He boasted it would make him king of the Orkneys. I said I probably had a crown somewhere in the stores that he could use.’ Rees sealed the cigarette with his tongue. He gave Stevie a sideways look.

  ‘I assumed he was full of shit – was he?’

  Stevie said, ‘We’re having elections soon. He’d put himself forward.’

  ‘I’d heard you were organised over there. Must be slim pickings, if Bjarne was in with a shout.’

  Stevie gave a wry smile. ‘He’d promised to sort out our fuel and electricity problems.’

  Rees tried to put the cigarette behind his ear and discovered the one he had rolled earlier lodged there. He set both roll-ups on the table. ‘That would do it. Given the choice most people will vote for the prick with the petrol over the prick without the petrol.’ He took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it in his top pocket. ‘Fuel is what people want most of all. It’s hard to get and easy to sell. I made a decision early on not to touch it.’

  Lucy took her husband’s hand. ‘Rees thinks it would make us too vulnerable.’

  Rees kissed Lucy’s fingers. ‘The only way to deal in that stuff is to build a gang, arm them to the teeth and prepare for war.’ The cigarette was back in his hand. ‘Okay, I sell the odd gun, the odd bullet, even an occasional grenade, but fuel? I leave that game to the big boys.’ He stuck the roll-up in his mouth. It had a slight bend in the middle, its unlit tip pointed upwards. ‘My bet is it was a big fuel deal that killed him.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Magnus kept his voice non-committal. ‘Who would we go to if we wanted to set up something like that?’

  ‘There’s only one outfit round here, the Petrol Brothers, ten miles inland at Eden Glen. You only exist round here if you’re in their grace and favour.’ The trader took the cigarette from his mouth and straightened the kink in its centre. He turned it around in his hand, as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. His eyes met Magnus’s. ‘I sent them there.’

  It took a second to sink in. ‘Our kids?’

  Rees nodded. ‘I sent the adults, but the kids went with them.’

  Magnus leaned forward in his seat. The air in the cabin seemed thinner, the pressure in his ears denser. ‘You sent our kids to an outfit called the Petrol Brothers?’

  ‘The woman said they needed a van and fuel to drive it.’ The belligerence was back in the Cornishman’s voice. ‘My responsibility is to my own family, not a bunch of teenage runaways. The two guys with her were beginning to nose about. I wanted them gone. Telling them where they could get a van and some petrol seemed like the surest way to get rid of them.’

  Stevie said, ‘How did they intend to pay for the van?’

  Mercy had finished feeding. Rees lifted her from her mother’s lap and kissed the top of her head. The child chortled and he kissed her again.

  ‘That was none of my business.’

  Twenty-Four

  The horses Rees lent them would never win a race, but they were steady mounts, surefooted on the fractured road surface. Stevie had forgotten how trees obscured the landscape. From the right vantage points in the Orkneys, when the weather was with you, you could survey whole swathes of the islands. Even on a slow horse, the mainland’s horizon rushed towards you. She found it hard to remember how the countryside had looked before, but was sure there were more trees now; hillsi
des that had been brown with bracken had given over to forest.

  The map Rees had drawn before they left took them along what had once been the main artery between Scrabster and the south. On one side of them, cliffs sheered down to tumbled rocks and crashing waves. On the other, armies of trees trembled on hillsides so jammed with new growth it was easy to imagine the banks of woodland sliding towards them.

  Stevie and Magnus followed Rees’s map away from the road, where lorries had once negotiated sharp bends and gear-crunching inclines, onto a forest path. The wind was up, the trees caught in its sway; branches exalting in the strong gusts blowing in from the sea. Stevie’s horse bent its ears back and whinnied, unnerved by the rush of air and roaring branches. She stroked its neck. The wind rose again. It carried fierce spatters of rain that fired through the canopies of leaves, ice cold and sharp against her skin. Stevie wrapped a scarf around her head, covering her mouth and nose, leaving a slit for her eyes. Pistol ran on ahead. She was worried about the dog. He was intrepid, but the distances they planned to travel were long and it would be a struggle for him to keep up.

  Neither of them talked much on the journey. The weather was against them, the forest path narrow and there was little point speculating on what lay ahead. Stevie let her mind drift. She remembered her friend Joanie’s manicured hands moving across her computer keyboard, fingers surprisingly sure against the keys, as they swiped through Tinder profiles. Joanie fluctuating between imaginative tortures intended for her ex-husband Derek and critiques of the self-catalogued men on display. Stevie had laughed until she had feared she would stain Joanie’s lemon sofa. Joanie had died in the first wave of the Sweats, before anyone had realised how far things would go. Stevie did not know if Derek had survived, but doubted it. No one else from her past had lived.