Darkshines Seven

by Russell Mardell

  Babbidge wiped a grubby sleeve across his forehead, feeling the beads of sweat returning as soon as his arm was back at his side. ‘You got any juice?’

  Galton rummaged in a jacket pocket and handed Babbidge a small hip flask. ‘Cheers. Hold up, G.’

  Babbidge stopped walking and leaned his large frame against the front tyre of a transit van that had been turned over onto its roof. He took a hefty swig from the flask and then squinted against the sun, turning his gaze away as if someone were shining a torch directly into his eyes. Galton had stopped by the back tyres and was looking out across the road towards the faded gloom of City 17’s horizon. He took the rifle up and then peered out through the telescopic sight.

  ‘Three miles to the border, Babs. I’m not carrying your sorry arse.’

  ‘Just take a minute will you, G?’

  ‘I give you all the minutes in the world, my friend.’

  ‘You really think we’re going to find her?’

  ‘Someone is, may as well be us.’

  Babbidge shielded his eyes with a hand and then looked back up into the calm blue perfection high above him. It looked like a cliché. It was a child’s painting of a summer sky; a tranquil blue with a searing white hole burnt through it. He turned the other way, looking for any sign of clouds on the horizon, anything that suggested forgiveness, but there was nothing. He took a balled up fist to his face and rubbed a knuckle at the stinging corner of his left eye, then, looking back, he noticed a cloud of starlings suddenly bloom directly above him, like a black tear had been dragged from the eye of the sun. They swarmed together, the blackened teardrop bulging and then thinning as the starlings lifted up higher and pushed on further. They were heading west, almost out of sight, and then suddenly they stopped and seemed to double back on themselves, the giant black blob in the sky folding in on itself and then scattering apart gracelessly as if each and every bird had just clattered into an invisible wall.

  ‘Straggler,’ Galton whispered from the other end of the van.

  ‘What?’

  Galton had rested the rifle barrel across the nearest tyre. Babbidge was soon behind him, fumbling with his own rifle and trying to look over his colleague’s shoulder for a better view.

  ‘Is it her?’

  Galton fiddled with the telescopic sight and seemed to groan indecisively.

  ‘They want her alive, you best be sure.’

  ‘You telling me how to do my job, Babs?’

  Babbidge lent his own rifle across the underside of the van and peered through the sight. Focusing in on the target Galton had found, he watched as a small black figure blurred and shimmered through the crosshair, slowly finding its definition. It was a man. His hair was long and grey, yet his body looked muscular and youthful. He was stripped to T-shirt and shorts, and, weighed down by a large rucksack, he was moving slowly across a burnt cornfield to the east side of the road.

  ‘Just some bloke,’ Galton said with a detached air of disappointment and then fired off one clean shot from his rifle. The man spun once on the spot and then tumbled sideways out of their sight. ‘Right, let’s get going, Babs.’

  Galton and Babbidge returned to the centre of the road and resumed their positions either side of the white lines. Babbidge swung his rifle up over his right shoulder as Galton let his fall into his loving embrace. For the next mile neither man said anything, merely scolded the sun in silence.

  4

  The grey haired man in the T-shirt and shorts introduced himself to Sam as Clarence S Boyd, and said it was nice to meet him finally. They had both entered City 17 from the north, Sam a good hundred yards behind Clarence. Sam was convinced that this old man had not seen him, that he had finally mastered the ability to sneak into places undetected, but the man had said he had known he was behind him all the way into the city. He also asked him why he had felt the need to sneak around as if he was spying on him. Sam found the question ridiculous. He asked Clarence if he knew nothing of The Party and what they were up to, and what about the stragglers in the city that would strip you of all your belongings before killing you and dumping you in the road, did none of that bother him?

  ‘Not really,’ was all Clarence had as a reply.

  They were both currently sat at a wooden table outside a pub on the edge of the city. It was a soulless pub attached to a shopping arcade and an equally empty hotel, stacked high and imposing above them, offering cheap overnight stops to the weary and undiscerning. The pub was still fairly intact and although the cellar had been gutted Clarence had managed to find a fridge that still worked and had got them a couple of Cokes.

  Clarence dumped his rucksack on the ground and rested his feet on it. ‘So what’s a young lad like you doing out on his own?’ he asked before taking a hearty swig of the drink and belching happily.

  A young lad. That was what Sam was. No matter what he had done these past months, what he had seen, he still looked like a boy, and there were still enough people out there that couldn’t look beyond what was in front of their noses. Clarence S Boyd was clearly one of them. Sam was a joke to him, a novelty to be patronised over a Coca-Cola and a false smile.

  ‘Where’s your family?’ Clarence asked after a second belch. ‘Mum, dad, what’s going on in your world, lad?’

  ‘I’m living with my aunt.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where’s that then?’

  ‘Back west a few miles,’ Sam lied. He suddenly had images of this smiling, over-friendly old man pulling a gun on him and demanding he take him back to his home, and his aunt, and whatever life he had there. But just as Clarence had read Sam wrong, so, it soon became clear, had Sam been mistaken about him too.

  ‘I live wherever I want.’ Clarence raised a foot and then kicked his rucksack. ‘Aye, I’ve got a decent little tent in there. A stove. Little bit of gas left for it. Got me a Thermos and a few bits of cutlery. I sleep out under the stars. Out in the fresh air. I never have to worry about some scumbag trying to take what I’ve got. I go where I want. I’ve got nothing tying me down. You ought to try it.’

  Sam thought of his aunt and their little house out in the country, the place she had found for them miles away from everything that was happening. It was their little piece of paradise she had said. Their sanctuary. He thought of the trees in the wood where he would play in those moments when he allowed himself to fit his age, of the pond and the ducks that came to visit. He could smell soup and boiling vegetables, and hear the crackle of their little log fire, and for that moment he thought this grey haired old man was the biggest fool in the world.

  ‘So, what are you doing in the city?’ Clarence asked. ‘Food?’

  ‘Yeah. Second time I’ve been here. Pickings were good last time.’

  Clarence raised his glass to Sam and downed his drink. ‘I’m moving through, heading south.’ Clarence waved an absent hand in a vague southerly direction. ‘Out along that cornfield outside the city, I hear there’s a farm with a windmill. Aye, a real windmill. I’ve never been in a windmill before. Going to pitch up alongside that for a bit.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then, who knows? Go where the day takes me.’

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘Why’s it got to be complicated?’

  Sam shrugged, unable to find a counter argument, and sipped at his drink.

  ‘How old are you, lad? Ten? Eleven?’

  ‘Twelve,’ Sam said defensively. ‘I’m twelve and a half.’

  ‘Your aunt’s happy about you being out in the city all alone?’

  ‘We need food. Supplies. I go and get the food for us. She’s not as strong as she was. She’s…’ Sam’s words trailed off.

  ‘Aye, I understand. No need to explain. You do what you have to do, lad.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give you some advice though?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You want to go around unnoticed, then you are going to have to ditch your undercover agent
routine. You have been watching too many films. Ducking behind walls and cars and in shop fronts every time I slowed down. I was on to you from the start. Everyone is walking on broken glass these days, lad. Everyone is primed for surprises, people hiding and getting ready to jump out on them. People live in the shadows nowadays. You understand me?’

  Sam didn’t, not really, but found himself nodding.

  ‘Stay out of the shadows if you don’t want to be seen. That’s where people are looking. You want to hide, you hide in plain sight. No one is going to be suspicious of someone that wants to be seen.’ Clarence got to his feet with a long and satisfied sigh, hoisted his rucksack onto his back and then offered his hand once more. ‘Nice to meet you there, Sam. You take care of yourself and your aunt.’

  For the briefest of moments Sam didn’t want him to leave. Loneliness suddenly came over him like a waterfall, soaking him, submerging him. Sam took the hand before him and shook it gently. He thought of asking Clarence for another drink, or for directions, anything that would keep him there for another few minutes, but he couldn’t say the words.

  ‘Thank you, Clarence S Boyd. Take care of yourself.’

  They shared a smile and then Clarence moved away, ruffling Sam’s hair.

  ‘Hey!’ Sam said, turning around on the bench. ‘What’s the S stand for?’

  Clarence grinned and then started wandering off down the road. ‘Sure isn’t sonofabitch, Sam. Sure isn’t that,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Today it’s Sam. Aye, that’s what it will be today, lad.’

  Sam watched him stroll off down the road, gazing at the buildings above and around him like he was window-shopping. He began to whistle a happy tune and then turned a corner and was gone.

  The loneliness came again and Sam shivered.

  Standing from the table, he felt for the gun wedged in the back of his trousers. The reassurance came immediately. He was soon taller, older, and tougher, and then he didn’t need anyone.

  5

  Around the time that Clarence S Boyd was dropping down dead in the cornfield south of the city, felled by a single bullet fired by a man named Galton, Sam was entering the shopping arcade that was attached to the hotel.

  He had taken another drink and a lunch of out of date crisps at the pub table, basking in the sun for as long as he dared. He nodded off for a while and then woke with a start, fumbling for the gun and despising himself for his stupidity and carelessness. Now, crossing the small road between the pub and the arcade, he did as Clarence had advised, as ridiculous as it sounded, and walked the empty road without trying to hide. He saw no one but was still convinced that many had seen him. He could feel eyes in the hotel before him and the buildings and shops behind him. He thought he saw people standing in the shadow of an alleyway between the hotel and the pub, sussing him out, scrutinising his worth, but he didn’t slow down to find out. Even if they had been working him over with their greedy little eyes, he reasoned, what the hell were they going to see worth their time? One small kid in tatty old clothes carrying a stupid little bag with an orange flower on it (his aunt’s, of course) was not exactly going to raise any interest. The gun was well out of sight, after all.

  The emptiness of the arcade was not a comfort, to Sam it felt ominous and instinctively a hand was at his gun again, stroking the butt, as soon as the slide doors of the entrance had swished shut behind him. The walls started to close in as he walked, just as the roof looked to be rising away from him. The shiny floor seemed to tilt under him and he thought he would slip over in his stupid, cheap trainers. A small blue plastic elephant wearing a red baseball cap and offering out some impossible grin – some sit-on ride for easily pleased children – moved back and forth wearily by the entrance, creaking on a wonky stand. Sam saw horror in the elephant’s big, cartoon eyes and its off-white grin. It was an expression that seemed to say: “Make it stop, Samuel! Make it stop!” Sam kicked it as he passed and the creaking screeched down into a sigh and then the sigh became a silence as the elephant stopped its pointless rocking back and forth.

  A large fountain, dry and drained, sat in the centre of the arcade, its base now filled up with food wrappers, and beer cans, and, Sam was sure, a couple of severed arms. He moved on around it and looked the other way. A simple keyboard rendition of ‘Something Stupid’ was being piped out of the walls, seemingly on a loop. Sam didn’t recognise it, he had no knowledge of Nancy and ‘Ol Blue Eyes, this bastardised version of a simple pleasure his only experience of them both. The cheesy cheeriness in this rendition of the tune, far from comforting him, actually terrified him.

  Most of the shops were already gutted, anything worth scavenging taken, and the worthless remains left in a scattershot trail along the walkways. In a clothes shop, a collection of naked mannequins had been placed in a line from the broken window front to the till, their arms bent in positions that made them look like they were all holding hands. Several shops had been burnt out and some had been daubed with graffiti, a reminder of the early days of chaos when destruction had been something to do, rather than a way to survive. At one set of escalators there was the corpse of a man at the top, his body jittering up and down against the still moving stairs. Sam had thought, just for a moment, that the man was still breathing and had moved across to him before he realised the truth.

  Sam moved between the shops but found very little. He sat for a while on a bench on the top floor of the arcade, searching for inspiration, some idea of what to do and where to go. He held the gun whilst he sat, thumbing the hammer and fondling the butt. He didn’t like the comfort it gave and he knew that if his aunt could see him she would hate it. But she wasn’t up to scavenging any more. This was Sam’s job and Sam’s rules. She didn’t like what he was becoming, she made no secret of that. She tried to mother him and Sam had fought it from the off. He loved her and she loved him. Once upon a time that would have been enough.

  ‘Something Stupid’ spun around again for the umpteenth time. The little bag with the orange flower on was only a quarter full, but Sam knew it was time to look elsewhere. He stood, wedged the gun back in place, and wandered slowly down the staircases to the ground floor. Walking back out into the sun drenched, ghostly quiet streets, and the eyes that he knew were on him, Sam turned out across a deserted car park and quickened his pace to who-knew-where.

  6

  The poster, like all the others dotted around the cities and the towns, read as follows –

  Citizens. Friends. Neighbours.

  A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU AT BLEEKER HILL

  Food. Shelter. Hope.

  The Party Loves You

  Hector Frost took the poster from the noticeboard behind the café counter, blew his nose on it and then balled it up and tossed it into an overflowing bin. He reached a hand into his back pocket, retrieved the bunched up wad of identical posters he had collected from various places throughout the day, and then entered the toilet at the far side of the café.

  Five minutes later Hector was looking at himself in the mirror of the small café toilets and he didn’t like what he could see. His hair, once so neat and carefully cropped was a big, bushy catastrophe, and the mismatched beard of red and brown had grown wildly and chaotically since his last shave. How many months had that been? He couldn’t remember. He could vividly recall breaking into the hairdressing salon, sitting there in that high backed leather chair and going to work with the clippers. But how long ago was that? Where had time gone? He looked down at the small nail scissors he had taken from a discarded handbag that he had found in the café car park and opened and closed the blades in quick succession, trying to wipe off a mysterious, sticky smear that was on the blades. With a long and pitiful sigh he began snipping away.

  Walking back out of the roadside café, out into the sun, he crossed the car park and began running his hands through his newly trimmed hair, feeling the inconstancies, the tufts and wispy remnants, and brushing away the loose follicles. How ridiculous he must look, he thought, and then instinctiv
ely glanced around the car park, suddenly paranoid that he was being watched. There was no one else there. The girl was still up ahead on the road, standing there with her dog and staring off into the burnt cornfield beyond, but she was too far away to see him.

  He returned to his car and the two huge bags he had filled with everything the last few hours of foraging had found. There were tins of food, pots of pills just the right side of expiry, cushions, a car seat cover, two bottles of whisky and a whole heap of clothes. Most were going to be too big for him, but he could adapt them, he was getting good at that. Looking down at his bare feet as he hauled the bags into the car, he debated with himself whether to try the road again in what was slowly becoming a tiresome search for shoes. The ones he had found so far, and there had been many, were either far too big or far too small. Every town he landed in was, it seemed, either Giantsville or Kiddieland. He had found a nice pair of expensive black loafers that really took his fancy but they had been at least a size too small. He had tried to work them, cutting along the sides with a penknife, but his feet were bruised and battered enough as they were without having a pathetic touch of vanity pinching his toes. The search would have to go on. He looked back up to the road and the deserted cars he hadn’t checked because of their proximity to the girl and her dog. He could probably get into a couple, he considered, he was getting good at sneaking past people undetected. He chewed the thought over for a few more minutes and then looked back down at his filthy, messed up feet.

  ‘Just a girl,’ he said to himself as he gently closed the boot of his car. ‘Grow a pair, Hector.’

  Slipping over the metal fence of the car park he nimbly made his way back up the small grassy incline towards the main road, expertly jumping over jagged stones and fallen branches. A mud-splattered jeep was the nearest vehicle to him and he got to the open driver’s door in a few quick bounds. Peering in he could see the jeep had already been stripped of anything worth pinching. There was blood on the windscreen and bullet holes in the seats. He shuffled in and leant over the driver’s seat to look in the back, but saw nothing but a cheap plastic doll strapped into a child’s safety seat, its stupidly outsized arms open wide to him as if asking for help or comfort. Hector gave a long sigh, and slithered back out.