Blackthorn

by Terry Tyler

  That almost made me cry.

  "Well, I'm going to call you August from now on," I said.

  He gave me a sweet smile, and said, "No. Call me Gus. That's what Ma used to call me."

  And I said, "Well, I think Gus is a pretty cool name," and he was totally made up. So Gus it is.

  Yesterday we planted a tree for Jay, and Byron carved a little marker that said In Memory of Jay Field. Died September 3rd, 2140.

  I like Byron loads, too. Well, not just like. I know he likes me; I'm a bit mad about him, to be honest. I hope he doesn't only fancy me in a 'wouldn't mind shagging it' sort of way, because I couldn't handle that. But tonight we talked for ages, when Gus walked off to be by himself for a bit, and we kept looking at each other for too long―you know how it goes. I think something's going to happen between us. Not yet, though. 'Cause we've got to have our wits about us, and not think about daft love stuff.

  Six days in. We're in a place called Ewerton now, and have got some work picking potatoes and baling straw. Fucking back-breaking, much more knackering than making pies, I tell you. But we get bread, cheese and fruit mid-morning, and proper stew with meat in, at night―better food than I ate as a shacker.

  Gus said we should use false names, so we're Ava, Brian and Russ, on the road from Lindisfarne to find Brian's sister on the south coast. It was my idea to choose names that sound like our own, in case we use the real ones in front of other people, by mistake.

  I love being away from Blackthorn. No Dawn moaning at me, and no more being treated like the scum of the earth every time I step outside Shackers' End. Here, I'm just a traveller. There are guards who tell us what to do, and keep order, and yeah, some of them are arseholes, but it doesn't matter, 'cause if we don't like it we can just tell them to pick their own bloody spuds, and move on.

  I saw a boy today, who looked like Jay from behind. I had to stop myself calling out to him. Then he turned round and he had a hare lip and only one eye, so he didn't remind me of Jay so much after all.

  Still made me sad, though.

  Chapter 40

  Gus

  I am truly alive, for the first time in many, many years.

  Once drawn into Ryder Swift's fantasy, my imagined sense of enlightenment was so great, so all-consuming, that I pitied the person I'd been before―thus, when the lie was unveiled, I couldn't imagine how I could possibly find something to fill the gap. I felt as though I was wandering in a wilderness.

  Then Evie linked her arm through mine and told me that the three of us are a team, and I understood a new and real truth.

  I have a genuine purpose, now―pure survival. The health and safety not just of myself, but these two fine people who have become the best friends I've ever known.

  This is living. I am not frightened any more.

  I think of my little domestic routines and schedules, and see that I gave them undue importance because I was scared to live.

  Tonight we were forced to move on from Ewerton; we were in the barn reserved for itinerant workers, waiting for the pan of stew to heat up for our dinner, when Evie slipped outside to obey the call of nature. Alas, one of the guards followed and tried to assault her.

  Her screams must have been heard in Blackthorn, and several of us had to restrain Byron before he rendered her attacker unconscious for evermore. The other guards were alerted by the commotion; we were on our way down the road as they hurled threats, making clear that we should never return.

  A shame; the stew smelled particularly good that night, and I'd been enjoying a conversation with a young man who used to live at Central. But we have supplies in our packs; we are never without those.

  It is ten days since we left Blackthorn.

  We walk for a couple of hours until we are too tired to go any further, and find a dry copse where we can sleep on moss, covered in a vast blanket that Evie had the forethought to grab as we were being evicted from Ewerton.

  Evie lies between us; as she falls asleep I see her roll over to snuggle up to Byron, and he puts his arm around her.

  They are becoming ever more close; I suspect they are falling in love. This is a joy to see, and I am happy for them, but their shared affection underlines my loneliness. Evie is a delightful young woman. How I wish one like her would look at me in the way she looks at Byron.

  We move with less urgency now; our circumstances necessitated initial haste, but now we have relaxed a little. If there are search parties out for us, with luck they will be scouring the north, up to Lindisfarne, or possibly Cumbria.

  In Lincolnshire, we pass the famous site of what was once UK Mercia, a massive agricultural settlement built shortly after the Fall, burned to the ground during the Territory Wars of the following decade. Plants and trees grow tall amidst the ruins of blackened buildings, but elsewhere cracked paving and road is still visible. A wasteland where the essence of death lingers.

  As we survey it from the brow of a hill, Evie shivers. "Dead creepy, isn't it?"

  "It certainly exudes an ominous ambience, and ever will do, I imagine."

  She elbows me in the arm. "Like I said, dead creepy."

  She makes me laugh. It's good to laugh.

  We come across small settlements. At some we ask if we can work for food; there is much to be done at this time of year, on any farm. Usually we are fed well for our labours; some have all the help they need within their communities, but give us food, anyway.

  People don't need false gods to show them how to be kind to their fellow man.

  We find one glorious place with charming people who give us the job of pickling, for two long days. The houses are situated in a corner of an old world village, and the gardens are filled with children and animals, some of which are domestic pets.

  We are made so welcome, and eat with two of the families in the evening; they invite us to stay longer to help with logging for the winter, and we would love to, but it's too close to Blackthorn, and they number only twenty-six, ten of them under the age of fifteen; we could put them in danger, were we tracked down.

  I have not revealed to my travelling companions that Ryder and Parks dined with Wolf on that no doubt fateful evening. This information would be hard for them to deal with, and they may even say that I should have had second thoughts. They knew Ryder as a friend before, and Parks had a wife.

  I will carry the burden of this secret. It is the right thing to do.

  I wonder who rules there now. Maybe Darius Fletcher is making a bid for power, after all; I hope so.

  At each settlement, however small, we are allowed in only if they are satisfied that we are of honest intent. Even a lone farm will have a guard and dogs posted outside.

  "You have to, since Central fell," one woman told me. "Too many folk wandering the country with nowhere to go. It's settled down a bit, but you've always got to be on your guard come winter."

  I appreciate, now, the walls of Blackthorn.

  We meet other travellers, mostly heading for Blackthorn or Lindisfarne. We want to warn them about Blackthorn, but we can't risk anyone turning up there with a tale about the three they met on the road. We tell no one our truth, however trustworthy they seem.

  Our story about searching for Byron's sister makes me think of Holly, my sister who left to work in Central all those years ago. I wonder if she is one of those who now travel the land, rootless. Or maybe she is still there. A part of me wants, very much, to visit Central and see for myself.

  One day, maybe; anything is possible, now we are free of Blackthorn.

  We have been on the road for four weeks; I keep track of the days in my tattered notebook, still in my pocket. Although many we meet have heard of Wolf North of Blackthorn, nobody has mentioned his demise. We have heard no rumours at all; usually, the messengers who travel the country act as the carriers of news, too.

  I thought this lack of information was strange, until Byron suggested that they may be hiding Wolf's murder from the outside world; such news would send a message of vulnerabi
lity to the rogues who rule Central.

  As we walk, the landscape fascinates me. Now and again we come across those vast old world roads, with their enormous concrete bridges, many of which are still intact, but the roads themselves are obscured by vegetation. Some are cluttered with the rusted remains of old world vehicles; the odd one still contains human bones. Between inhabited areas we may find ourselves in thick, dark woodland, often so sodden and impassable underfoot that we have to find an alternative route. Animals run wild; cats, dogs, small rodents. The large population of wild pigs and rabbits means we are never short of meat; we find pheasants, too.

  Byron teaches Evie and me how to make snares, use a bow and arrow to catch our prey, and gut and skin. He brought with him the book that told us about the death caps (a ghoulish souvenir, he claims), and Evie studies it to find out which plants we can eat, making jokes about 'nature's pantry' that make Byron laugh but me wince, because it provokes thoughts of Ryder and Parks.

  We fish, using lines that Byron makes from branches. Few evenings in life can be better spent than those sharing with friends the fish you have just caught, cooked over an open fire, as the colourful skies of early autumn slowly fade to dark.

  Evie and Byron say I have changed.

  "You're way different from how you used to seem," Evie says, on one of these perfect evenings. "Now you're one of the people I like best in the world, ever, but you probably always were; it's just that 'cause you were a lieutenant we couldn't get to know each other."

  I am glad it's dark. Her words fill my eyes with tears.

  I know I am changing, all the time. Lieutenant Hemsley faded when I found out the truth about Blackthorn, and disappeared once I walked through North Gate for the last time. The adult Gus has emerged: the real self I never knew was there. Gus is happier than Lieutenant Hemsley; he smiles more, and talks openly. He finds it easier to establish connection with people, and understands that you do so by revealing your thoughts.

  I tell Evie and Byron about Micah, and they assure me that I have been carrying my guilt around on my back for way too long; it was not my fault.

  "It's them Norths, that's all," says Evie. "Not you, or anyone else; not even the traveller who killed him. Just Wolf and his dad."

  We talk a great deal about Ryder and Wolf's deception, as we walk, and as we sit by the fire at night. Every evening, it seems, we recall another example of Ryder's skill in creating a fiction so intricate that it fooled us all. Byron remembers one night on Lookout 9, when Swift performed a one-act play for an audience that consisted only of him, in which he held a hand to his worried brow, awed as he claimed to be by the task in front of him.

  "He was damn good, I have to give him that," says Byron. He laughs; he remains amused by the charades because he was never taken in; I admit to feeling foolish that I was.

  "Yeah, but duh," says Evie. "You and everyone else; even I wasn't sure."

  "Those little scenes he played out," says Byron, "like when you saw him praying in the spirit field; they were the real genius. He knew he could leave it to his audience to spread the word. Old man Peter―that even sucked Astra in, didn't it? And bloody hell―d'you remember, Evie, that trance, when he woke up screaming? When he was supposed to have been sent to Despair?"

  "Two evil geniuses," says Evie. "Him and Wolf."

  "Ryder is more of an arch manipulator," I say. "But yes, you're right about Wolf. It seems almost a shame that he had to go; such a brilliant mind could have been employed as a real force of good for humanity." I am a little drunk; we were given a large flagon of cider by a farmer, that afternoon.

  "Yeah, well, he deserved what he got." Byron's tone is gruff; he reaches for the cider, and swigs back yet more. "For allowing Abe Slovis to carry on how he did, and all the rest of it, he deserved to die in agony." He holds up the flagon, by way of a salute. "Three cheers for Lieutenant August Hemsley, who did the right thing!"

  He and Evie both clap, which I enjoy, but I can't help feeling a fraud. "I did it for all those who will live safely now he is no longer alive, yes, but I admit to doing it for myself, too. If I'm honest, which I must be, now."

  For poor old Hemsley. Those three words that shattered my illusions about myself. I am not ready to tell anyone about them, though. I don't think I ever will be; I am too ashamed.

  "Doesn't matter why you did it," Byron says. "What matters is that you did."

  It is clear to me that my companions' relationship has progressed beyond friendship. One night I awoke to find I was alone in the spot we had chosen to sleep. I sat up, alarmed, fearful that they had either been abducted or simply abandoned me, but before long they reappeared, arms around each other, talking in whispers. I pretended to be asleep.

  Byron is completely at home in our new way of life; unfettered by his duties as a Blackthorn guard, he can run wild and free, as he always wanted to. He is by nature a man of the road, I think; sometimes, without warning, he will push us into a hiding place, because he has heard footsteps, or a rustle in the trees undetected by Evie or me. Sure enough, a few moments later we see people pass. Sometimes they look like trouble, but other times they're ordinary travellers, like us. We must always be on our guard, though, however harmless they appear.

  Evie has adapted well, and says that if only she had known how great it was to be free, she'd have chosen the traveller life years ago.

  "Yes, but it's early October," Byron says. "You wait until six weeks on; it might not seem so rosy then."

  "Talking of which, we should step on it," I say. "We need somewhere we can stay for winter, and we need to find it soon." For we have slowed down; there have been too many days on which we have not progressed at all, spent as they were in settlements where we stopped for work. Rainy days hinder our progress, too, as do those when one of us has blisters, or a painfully strained muscle.

  I believe we have slowed down simply to enjoy these pleasant days, too. Winter or not, sometimes I feel as though I could happily keep walking, just the three of us, forever. I never understood, before, the joy of travelling, carrying nothing but essentials. I surrounded myself with walls and possessions to create an illusion of safety.

  I have adapted. Never again will I lay down my life in service simply because the person in question is in a position of authority; they will need to earn my respect, first.

  I told Evie about my mother saying I was born to serve, and she said, "Bugger that."

  She and Byron could have gone off on their own, three being a crowd, as the saying goes, but they never make me feel excluded. They have not told me their relationship has moved on, but they hold hands and kiss in front of me sometimes, I imagine so that I am made aware of the situation.

  I ask if they would rather I went off alone.

  "No freakin' way," Evie says. "We're in this together." And Byron echoes her sentiments wholeheartedly.

  For the first time since my mother died, there are people who care if I live or die.

  I never knew, before, that I was worth caring about.

  We reach Norfolk on the eighth of October; rusty old signs indicate the county. We are fairly sure of the way to the Five Villages settlements, thanks to directions from those we have met. This autumn is so beautiful; yes, it is colder now, but the sun still gives much warmth during the day. Sometimes I smell the sea.

  One day I say to Evie that this is the happiest time in my life, because it is. Even happier than childhood.

  "I wish I could capture each day in my mind and replay it over before I go to sleep at night," I tell her.

  She hugs me, and says I'm a daft old sod, but a lovely daft old sod, and she wishes she could, too.

  That makes me very happy indeed.

  When the rain pours and the wind blows I am aware of the onset of winter; we huddle in whatever shelter we can find, lighting fires day and night. We pass round around my three books, given to me by a farmer whose collection had been in his family's possession since his great-grandfather was alive. Such treasure!r />
  We talked for a long time about our love of reading, and he was kind enough to let me take some. The three I chose are collections of short stories by writers called Somerset Maugham, Steven King and Jilly Cooper. The first died in 1965, I read, but the other two would probably have been alive at the time of the Fall; I wonder if they perished, or survived.

  The Somerset Maugham stories are fine literature, whereas those by King are entertaining tales of horror that Byron reads to us late at night. I like those by Jilly Cooper very much; I chose them because I thought they would amuse Evie, forgetting that she scorns what she calls 'girly shit'. Indeed, I've found that it is I who most enjoys these stories of young women in those glorious, pre-Fall days, who could afford the luxury of obsession with affairs of the heart.

  How privileged they were, safe from danger, hunger or disease, yet they could be made so miserable by love gone awry.

  All three of us love the books; while one is reading aloud the other two will interrupt to discuss elements of those times that we don't understand; they tell us so much about the old world.

  It is the twenty-fourth of October, and we have been on the road for seven weeks. I have become leaner, stronger, fitter. Even if alone, I would know how to feed myself and make a shelter. I have become wise in the ways of the road; like Byron, Evie and I have learned to keep constantly alert. We stop and listen to every unusual sound.

  Now and again we come across a lone traveller, or we might converse with a group of two or three, as cautious about us as we are about them. After a few moments of assurances and the mutual laying down of weaponry, we will come together to share experiences, information, food.