“Zak!” he bellows.
She runs to the kitchen door and jumps out into the snow. “Zak’s inside with the kids,” she says zipping up her coat as she steps next to Rick, “but I’m here to help.”
He turns to her and smiles, his hands beneath the metal shutter. “Good,” he says perfunctorily. “Grab the bottom here, then hold it steady whilst I get the screw in.”
“Sure,” she agrees as she takes the corner of the metal sheet and lifts it into place.
Rick kneels in the snow, a long screw in hand, and places it in the hole at the corner, lining it up with the base he’d fixed onto the wall last week.
“Didn’t think we’d have to use these so soon.”
“Me neither,” Cassie replies as she looks out over the fields to the hill. The convoy can’t be seen from here. She’d have to walk to the end of the drive and look down the hill to see them. “Have they got any further?”
“No,” Justin replies. “Last time I looked they were still shovelling the snow.”
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“What if it is Benson—like Ruth said.”
“Then we’ll deal with it.”
“I feel angry.”
Rick looks at her and she shies from his surprise.
“Angry? With what?”
“That the kids are going to be scared again—that I’ve brought someone here who’s probably only going to go back to her boyfriend anyway.”
“I think, Cassie, that the kids are going to have to get used to being scared. The world’s a different place now. They’re going to have to grow up knowing how to protect themselves in a way we never had to.”
“So you’re saying this is a good thing?”
“No. Not a good thing. Just our reality. Will she go back to her boyfriend?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that she doesn’t seem that scared. I know she put on a good show-”
“Show?”
“Yes. I’m just not buying this abused girlfriend thing.”
“You surprise me. I didn’t think you were that cynical.”
“Hah! Realistic is what I am Rick.”
“You’re not being too harsh then?” he asks as he takes another screw and slips it into the top corner of the grid.
“Maybe,” she says wishing she hadn’t said anything. She didn’t want to delve into her past, not now, and the last thing she wanted was for Rick to think badly of her.
A window opens from an upstairs room and Zak calls out, his voice high with excitement. “They’re coming! They’re at the gates,” he calls down then pulls the window shut.
“Oh, hell!” Justin exclaims. “How’re we going to get these other panels on the windows?”
“I’ll get Becca and Zak. We can do it,” she says.
“This one’s done,” Rick confirms and Cassie takes her cue and runs back inside to get Becca and Zak. She’d make the kids safe this time. There was no way thugs would get into the house and scare the living daylights out of them again.
“Best get kitted out,” Rick says looking at Justin as Cassie disappears into the house. He nods and they both turn and walk back to the brick outhouse with the horseshoe on the door. Rick shuffles his coat off and lets it drop to the floor then takes the shaped metal sheet off the hook on the wall. “Here,” he says passing it to Justin, “this one’s yours.”
“Thanks,” he returns, pulls apart the two metal pieces held together by two strips of leather and hooks them over his head. The leather straps rest on his shoulders and the shaped metal covers his chest and belly. He reaches to the shelf and pulls out two leather gauntlets, the fingers and thumb cut off for flexibility, and slips them over his arms. Rick follows suit and rigs himself out in their makeshift protective gear. Pulling his coat back on and zipping it up he grabs the long khaki bag from the floor and slings its straps over his shoulders. Its contents jangle. He picks up the other and hands it to Justin.
“I’d forgotten how heavy these are,” Justin exclaims as he takes the bag.
“Got your helmet?” Rick asks checking along the shelves. Two motorbike helmets sit side by side.
Justin laughs. “I’ll put that on if I need it. Gonna look like a wally otherwise.”
“True,” Rick returns with a nod as he grabs the first helmet and passes it to Justin then takes the other for himself. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Outside Cassie, Becca and Zak are screwing the panels into place. Harry and Celie sit beneath the grid helping to keep it secure as Cassie screws it down.
“Only two more to go,” she says as Rick passes.
“Don’t let them in, Justin,” Celie calls as the men turn to walk down the long driveway to the locked gates.
“We won’t,” Rick calls back as he opens the farmyard gate and steps away from the farm. He takes a final look at Cassie, white-blonde hair wedged beneath a dark woollen hat, her attention focused on the job, then walks with a determined stride to meet the visitors at the gate.
Chapter 23
Benson turns the key in the engine and the car starts. She’d better appreciate the effort he was making, the fuel he was using, to get her back. His bed had been cold and waking to an empty bed had been ... well, awful. He was nothing without her—he’d make her understand. He couldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t let her go! After all, where else was he going to find a woman now?
The door opens then slams shut as Wes slides into the seat, the barrel of his gun sticking up between his legs.
“Is that thing loaded?” Benson asks, a knot of anxiety in his belly as he imagines the gun triggering and blasting Wes’ head off. He shakes his head and takes a breath as he slips the car into first.
“Sure is,” Wes answers with a hint of pride.
Benson looks down the length. The safety catch is off.
“For crying out loud, Wes! At least put the safety on.”
“Uh, yes, sorry!” he replies. “Not used to it yet.”
“Give me strength,” Benson sighs as he moves the car forward.
The armour feels alien as Rick strides towards the gates and the convoy of lorry, cars and jeep parked up against the wide steel gate. A figure stands between the grill of the lorry and the grid of the gate. As they approach a smaller figure appears, a woman with a bundle in her arms. A baby!
“Don’t think this is Benson come to claim his woman,” Justin says as they continue walking forward. As they reach the barrier, Justin nods in dour greeting at the waiting man, “How do.”
“Morning,” he returns.
Rick scans the man’s face and the cars behind. Only the two figures stand at the gate, but he’s wary and watches for movement, his training kicking in. The man is taller than them both and as broad as Rick, perhaps as broad as he used to be when he was going through the hell of training. His eyes, though wary, look kindly at them and the skin around them crinkles at their approach, the white of his teeth shines through the dark of his beard and moustache as he smiles.
“What you doing up this way? Nothing past here but the moor,” Justin warns looking out across the bleak hillsides to their left. “You’ll not get far—not this time of year. You’d best turn around and go back into the town,” he says doing his best impression of the gruff and taciturn hillside farmer. Rick wants to laugh out loud but keeps his poker face in gear and his attention on the scene. Still nothing moves among the convoy.
“We’re on our way south. The motorway is blocked in both lanes—we thought it’d be better to come up here.”
The woman remains silent at his side and hugs the bundle to her.
“There’s nowt up there, bar hills and the snow,” Justin continues. “Like I said, best to go back to town.”
“We just came through. It seems empty, but we didn’t like to stop, not after last time.”
“Last time?”
“They attacked us in the last town,” the woman replies.
“Why w
ould they do that?”
“They didn’t take kindly to our message.”
“Oh?” Justin replies.
Rick sags, the tension leaving him. Nut jobs. No threat, but he didn’t want to listen to the man start to preach.
“Right,” he interrupts as the man opens his mouth to explain. “Like Farmer Giles here said – he couldn’t help that little joke – you’re best off going back to the town.” Justin digs him in the ribs. “You can’t get south this way.”
“But—we don’t have anything to eat or drink now—we’re starving.”
Justin looks from the woman to Rick. He shrugs then turns to face the farm, gesturing to Justin to do the same. “We can’t let them in,” he whispers.
“But they’re starving!” Justin returns.
“But we haven’t got enough food as it is.”
“We can go back to the town.”
“Yeah, because that went so well yesterday!”
“We can give them a drink and a small meal at least. We don’t have to take them in,” he argues.
“Justin, no!”
Justin sighs then turns. “I’m sorry-”
“Please,” the woman begs, “my baby! He needs something to drink.” She pushes the infant towards them. He lies swaddled in blankets, deep in sleep, his cheeks flushed pink, his lashes dark against his pale skin. Rick catches Justin’s conflicted look and sighs.
“OK,” relents Justin, all resistance gone. He steps towards the gate and reaches to his pocket for the keys for the padlock.
“You can’t stay though,” Rick says with determination.
The man smiles at Rick in return, catching his eyes with a clear blue and steely gaze, then turns, ushers his wife to the lorry and climbs up into the driver’s seat. Rick and Justin walk the convoy back to the farm, directing them to parking places then walk with the group up to the farmhouse.
As Cassie twists the final screw into the panel, the last engine turns off and the air is quiet again. Her heart pounds as she runs to the farmyard gate and looks out over the scene and searches for Rick and Justin. Spotting them among the vehicles and people beginning to wander around, she relaxes though she struggles to comprehend the scene. Rick said no one would come up here. It can’t be Benson though, not from the way Justin is smiling and laughing with the tall man next to the woman and … is that a baby? Cassie pulls open the gate and walks towards them, wanting to take control of the situation, an old anxiety, a feeling out of being out of control rising. She won’t let it get to her so she takes a deep breath and strides toward the group. There were one, two, three … perhaps ten or eleven of them. Where had they come from?
“Rick,” she calls as she gets closer, scanning the faces of the men and women. No children, apart from the baby.
“Cassie,” he says as though with relief.
“What’s going on?” she asks, words hushed as he pulls her to the side away from the group.
“Well, it’s not Benson come to claim his woman.”
“I guessed that much. Who are they and where have they come from?”
“Not sure yet, but I think the tall one’s a religious nutter—said something about people in the last town not liking his message and the women said they’d been booted out.”
Cassie frowns in confusion and laughs. “Weird!”
“Weirdos!”
“Hah! Don’t be rotten,” she laughs looking at the group of men and women, they all seem to be waiting for direction, all standing quietly around the taller man as he speaks to Justin.
Justin laughs again then walks towards the farmhouse, the taller man keeping pace with him, the others following behind.
“Bit odd that they’re so quiet, don’t you think?” Cassie asks as she walks behind the group with Rick.
“Hmm,” he replies though she’s not sure he’s listening.”
Chapter 24
“Get it into a low gear,” Wes says as the car struggles up the hill.
The gears grind as Benson shoves it down into first.
“My feet are frozen,” he says by way of explanation. “Foot slipped off the clutch.”
“Sure,” Wes replies.
Did he smirk? “You sure it’s up here?” Benson asks as they follow the lines of deeply bedded snow, tracks that lead straight up the hill towards the moors. “Something’s come up here anyhow,” he says peering up the road.
“We followed them up this far. They’re up at Three Peaks Farm.”
“Isn’t that where that weird off-grid-grow-me-own-veg couple live?”
“I think so, least that’s what Ollie said, and he’s into his hunting so he’d know.”
“Wish I’d brought him instead of you! At least he can handle a gun.”
“Me too, but he can’t move. That woman gave him a right battering.”
“Serves the horny bugger right. You can’t go about treating women like that—got to woo them you have, make them think they’re special, then they’ll put out.”
“Hah! Like you did with Ruth?”
“I was always good to my Ruthie.”
“Yeah! Sure you were. Why’s she left you then?”
“I dunno. She’s flighty—doesn’t know when she’s onto a good thing.”
“You gonna bring that bit back for Ollie then?”
“The woman that broke his nose? Nah! She needs breaking in, that one.”
“I’ll have it then.”
“It? Mate, you’ve got to think of them as human you know.”
“You got Ruth to settle down. I can do the same with that one. You didn’t see it, sorry, her, standing in that shop like a … like a …”
“Like a what?”
“Er, I dunno …”
“A Botticelli?”
“Eh?”
Benson groans. “A Botticelli—like in the ‘Birth of Venus’.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“She was a goddess-”
“Porn star! That’s what she reminds me of. She was stacked, and her arse! Face was real pretty too, but you could tell she weren’t no natural blonde.” Benson snorts with laughter at the man’s description. Wes quiets, staring out of the window as the car climbs the hill. “I think I’m in love!” he says with a sigh.
“Love? Pah! Lust more like. Listen, if you really want her then we’ll bring her back, but only once I’ve got my Ruthie.”
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
“Ruthie? She won’t get the choice.”
As the car continues to climb up the hill Wes points over to a cluster of buildings, dark blocks against the white of the hill. “There it is,” he says. “Three Peaks Farm.”
Ten minutes later and they pull over to the side of the road just before a bend, hidden from the view of the farm by a cluster of trees.
“We’ll wait here until it gets dark.” Benson says looking up at the sky. The sun was already sinking.
The warmth in the kitchen is stifling as Cassie sits next to Rick at the table. An awkward silence fills the room as Becca finishes drying the dishes and Justin looks down the table at Sebastian, the de facto leader of the group that had so far spent one very long day with them. Rick stares at the man as he continues to talk. He’s been talking for the last hour and Cassie’s head is beginning to thump. She wishes that he’d just shut up. He’s the same type as Casper Benfield, one of Dan’s business friends. They’d had the Benfields over to the house in the country, had to entertain them for the entire weekend, and by the end of it she could have chopped his tongue out and had it served with dinner. And his hands! She’d even had a bruise on her buttock from his ‘friendly’ nips. Dan had laughed, told her she was being silly, not to make a fuss, and she’d obeyed, as she always did. She sighs as Sebastian continues to talk. Justin is animated in the discussion, something about the pursuit of a higher intelligence and mention of cleansing the earth and Noah. Rick snorts next to her and she nudges him as his head tips back, his eyes closed. If she had to sit and listen, so did
he.
“What? What is it?”
“You were snoring,” she whispers
“No, I wasn’t. I was just resting my eyes.”
“Snoring,” she says with a hushed laugh. She leans into him and whispers. “I thought they were only supposed to stay for one meal?”
“Me too, but he seems to have charmed Justin.”
Cassie looks to the head of the table where Justin sits, glass of wine in hand, animated in his conversation with the man.
“I can’t follow what he’s talking about. I’m too thick.”
“You’re not.”
“Well, it’s going over my head,” she says with a smile. Life was so much simpler before and she yearns for its ease. She’d known what it was to be successful then—make sure she looked great and take care of Dan’s needs. It was so easy.
“… Barton. It’s my home town.”
“Barton?” Cassie blurts, the word snapping her out of her reverie.
“Yes, it’s my home town,” Sebastian replies. “Do you know it?”
“It’s where Dan is, and Lina!” she says and the griping pain of loss tightens in her belly.
“Are they your friends?”
“My husband and … and a girl,” she says unable to hide the emotion that has overtaken her.
“Oh,” he responds and looks at her with a sympathetic nod of understanding.
Rick slips his arms over her shoulders and hugs her to him. “We’ll find them, Cassie. After the snows.”
She takes a sharp breath. This is the first time Rick has voluntarily mentioned going back. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes. It bothers me that Leni isn’t with us. I need to know that she’s OK.”
“And Dan?”
“Yes, of course, and Dan.”
“Are you on your way to Barton?” Cassie asks, her interest in the man reversed.
“No, I was just telling Justin how we came to be here, of my wanderings around the country, of how the plague made me see everything so clearly.”
He turns again to Justin and continues his flow of words, “… pale horse … plague”
The Outcast's Journey Page 10
