More trees were felled near to the house and dragged to the driveway by tractor to be cut up. The space left was requested by Chris to put pigs in when they were expecting; they could have a steady food supply of kitchen waste then. Steve offered to help and built the fenced pen bit by bit. He said it gave him back a small bit of normality. A semi-circular ark was added to the pen for shelter, and the first occupants were herded down the driveway.
Chris wanted his new assistant to help, but she was still very weak and Sera said no.
Out of the three puppies, two had died. They were badly malnourished and frankly she marvelled that they had lived that long.
The survivor was a bitch with jet black fur and a white chin, chest and belly. Ana named her Pig, from a book she had read about a farmer with a sheepdog.
Pig had just about made it through with the milk substitute, and grew much healthier by the day after she could manage solids. She was kept inside by Sera until she was happy that the puppy would live; as it was she was going to be a small dog but there was no way to say for sure if she would be ok in the long term.
Ash was very curious about the little collie sniffing around his paws. He could've fit the entire dog in his mouth easily, yet it scared him and he would jump out of its way. As he became used to this, and Pig grew stronger on her feet, it became an intentional game between them.
Andrew and Liam had started to go out to scavenge again locally, ensuring that every spare storage space was stocked full.
The main aim of the Rangers was to find survivors and recruit, but Steve was set to house guard and trainer for a month. His suggestion was a period of intense firearms training for Leah, then a more relaxed pace from thereon after.
Penny had organised further clearances of the house, opening up another floor of living space as people were asking for their own rooms. The office spaces were emptied and beds brought in, all the unwanted and unusable detritus from the newly reclaimed space went for burning.
In all, the house was a hive of activity with nobody asking for a day off, not that they would have got one.
GREENER GRASS
Kyle lay on the filthy ground where he had been for weeks. His long, wispy beard was matted with something. He didn't know what it was but a good guess was that it was his own shit. It must be old, because they hadn't fed him for days. He drank when it rained through the holes in the roof to fill his pan up, and every day he wished he had kept his head and not tried to remove Dan's.
He still hated him; even more now that he knew he would die here because of him.
It was his fault, him and his elite followers. A voice inside Kyle told him that not even he would treat him like this.
"SHUT UP!" He shouted back, then slapped a hand over his mouth and froze.
If he shouted he would be beaten again. Don't upset them, he thought to himself, if you are good and quiet they might feed you.
They had fed him well before, when he told them about the group and Dan and his guns. They stopped him then.
"Where are these guns?" The leader, Billy, asked, leaning close to his face. Something in the way he said it made him worry about everyone there and what this man would do to them.
He realised that this man was a bully too; he was like Dan but this one never pretended to be good.
He tried to politely refuse them, so they beat him. Then they beat him again and again and again.
Then they locked him away, remembering to beat him every so often to wring out any of the minute details he had forgotten to tell them.
He has been in this box for longer then he can remember now, and it was all Dan's fault.
NIKITA
"Begin" said Steve, activating a stop watch.
Leah drew the Glock and opened the door. She moved in a crouch which Dan knew was a strain on the legs; she had clearly been working on her strength and fitness.
She moved methodically through the building, which Steve had set up but Leah had never seen before, clearing each room perfectly and quietly. She took the stairs backwards, gun and eyes pointing the same way.
She eventually came to the blind spot where he waited for her. He heard her pause outside the room. He could feel her breathing. A noise to his left made him turn, and as he turned back he saw Leah had entered the room fast and stood with Glock held level with his chest. She was a little too close, but he was not confident that he could disarm her without getting shot.
He walked outside with her pacing backwards, never losing sight of her target. Joe walked in behind her, shouting, she turned and pulled the trigger twice.
One in the chest, one in the head.
Too late she turned back to Dan; he was on her, knocking the Glock from her hands. She let her left hand drop away from the gun as she saw this happening, and simultaneously drew the knife from her left shoulder strap. Her right hand gripped his vest as the knife was rested against his neck.
"STOP" roared Steve.
She let him go and sheathed the blade before picking up the empty Glock and sliding in the magazine from her vest.
She smiled at Dan, then holstering the Glock she turned to Steve for her assessment.
"How did you know he was there and how did you distract him?" He asked her.
She slipped a hand into a pouch as she said, "It was the last room and the only place big enough to hide him. Plus, he breathes like an elephant" then she withdrew her hand from the pouch and produced a small handful of Haribo "cost me a cola bottle though"
Dan laughed, realising the noise was a soft sweet hitting the carpet after she threw it over the door he hid behind. The kid was clever, and fast.
"I'm changing your name to Nikita" he said with a smile.
"Why?" She shot back.
Dan sighed, and Steve promised to find the book.
"Did they make a film of it?" She asked, hopefully.
Steve sent her back to the house and filled Dan in as they strolled along.
"Her mile and a half is just over the nine-minute mark" he said, impressed. Dan commented that she was in Paratrooper time.
"She can do pull ups too. Only a couple at a time but she's getting fitter. Paul has been working on the hand to hand stuff and says that she’s getting better by the day" he continued.
"She's competent at putting rounds down range, but I'm going to develop that next"
Dan was pleased, and thanked Steve for his good work. He was tired as he'd been doing Steve's duty days ranging to give him time to train her.
"I might look for a short wheel based Defender for her, and I'll take over for the driving if you don't mind?" Steve didn't. He saw how much he cared for the girl and asked him if he had any kids.
Dan was silent for a while as he lit a cigarette.
"Girl and a boy. They would have been six and four by now" he said sadly.
"Two boys" Steve shared in return. One was with his mum, the other was away at university. Dan wondered if there was hope there, but Steve told him the last contact he had was to say that he was too ill to come home.
Both full of sadness and regret, they walked on in silence.
MAJOR FEAT OF ENGINEERING
Logistics were reassigned to help the engineering team. The scaffolding went up, slowly, and one by one the solar panels were fixed onto a frame of Mike's design. A further trip had to be made for more poles and fixings, and progress was slow.
Mike shared his vision with Dan as he smoked one morning, with Ash playing with Pig and the spaniels around their feet as Pete used a pressurised air rifle to remove a nest of pigeons from the trees marked for felling.
"The A-frame rests over the roof so that we don't have to compromise the integrity of the tiles" Mike explained
"We will hopefully get ten water tanks on the apex to be heated by the top rows, and the rest will power the battery bank. Even better, Adam and Carl are confident that they can fit a power shower in each bathroom"
That was welcome news. Mike went on to explain that he intended to rerou
te the guttering for a form of toilet flushing and water supply. As he began to explain in more detail, Dan became lost and politely cut him off by saying what a great job he was doing.
"When do you reckon you'll be finished?" He asked.
Mike sucked a breath in, performing a practiced routine of haggling. Dan was tempted to ask for the straight answer, but found himself playing along.
"Six-month project minimum" Mike started "and that's not taking into account any bad weather or technical problems..."
"Cut the bullshit; what's this going to cost me?" he joked, making Mike laugh.
"Just let me know if you need anything" he finished before he walked away calling Ash to stop playing and follow.
He was happy with the engineering side, but was worried about Chris. He looked very tired and had been working long hours with Ana on the farm. Pete had taken days off hunting at a time to help him.
He decided that the Rangers new priority was another recruitment drive. He walked into ops to see Lexi and Joe kitting up for their tasks.
"New objective, people" he declared confidently as he strode in "find more survivors. We need more hands here, and we've been focusing too internally."
They looked at each other, then back to Dan to accept their new task.
"Take an extra jerrycan of diesel and try to stay out as long as you can; be careful." He said, then opened a map to give them directions so as not to overlap.
He kitted up himself and called Ash to him. He put on his Christmas E&E dog vest with a spare water bottle and packet of food and went to tell Steve where they were going.
HAPPINESS IS PURPOSE
He didn't really know how to explain it, not without upsetting people, but Joe was happier now than he had ever been. Not at first, not when he was sleeping on the floor of his shop and waiting for someone to tell him what to do, but now. Right now, this very moment, is the best moment of his life so far.
He was a failure before. He tried hard, but just wasn't good enough. So they said.
Now he was driving a hard-core truck, carrying an assault rifle and a handgun. Not only did he have all this great stuff, he now knew how to use it.
Joe was under no illusion that he was great; Dan and Steve were both ex-military – that was obvious. Lexi was fit and could fight, plus she'd already proven herself. He never mentioned this, in case the thought of stencilling a bad guy on the wing of your Land Rover was distasteful. Shit, even the vet had seen more action than him.
He wasn't immature about it, and certainly wasn't out to look for trouble, but he wanted to prove himself. He was fitter, stronger and more capable to handle himself than ever before. He practiced with his weapons until he was confident in himself. The only remaining test was a real life scenario.
If he followed the instructions from Dan and Steve, he would avoid problems. That wouldn't prove his worth much, but he was determined not to screw up.
He drove west, and after an hour started stopping at the places most likely to have attracted survivors. He found evidence of people having looted, indicating survivors had been there, but no evidence of people still there.
Another hour and still no sign of life. By lunchtime he had crossed into Wales, and struck gold.
In truth, they found him, not the other way around.
He drove along a lane into a village and was so surprised to see another vehicle coming towards him that he didn't react straight away.
The other car, a normal family estate, stopped in the road. Joe stopped and the two had a standoff for a few seconds.
Joe forced himself to think; what was he supposed to do now? He had expected to find grateful people huddled in terrible conditions waiting for rescue.
The driver of the estate acted first, by reversing away. Joe snapped out hid daze and dropped his own vehicle into gear to follow. He flashed his lights desperately, trying to get them to stop. They didn't, and after a poorly executed J-turn, were pursued by Joe to a campsite. The occupants of the car, two young women he saw, fled behind the buildings shouting.
A booming sound echoed out as a woman appeared from the side of a caravan, lowering a shotgun to point it at Joe.
He was sure this was a defensive thing, and that they were not attacking him. He switched off his engine and slowly climbed out of his cab, keeping both hands up. He had a Glock on his right leg, and had intentionally left the rifle out of sight.
The woman with the shotgun came towards him, scared and desperate. He started to talk but she screamed at him to shut up. "You tell him we are not his property!" She said, confusing Joe.
"Who?" He asked.
"You know full well who I'm talking about. That bastard wants girls, no amount of threats will make us get on our backs for him. Now fuck off and tell him that" she snarled at him.
"Look" he said reasonably "I'm nothing to do with anyone here, I've come from miles away looking for more survivors." She glared at him, considering the possibility that she had been wrong.
"Seriously" Joe said "I've never been here before and you are the first people I have spoken to since I left home today"
She thought about this and asked "How many of you? Where?"
"Feel free to put that down and I'll tell you everything" he countered reasonably.
"No" she snapped "you're still armed"
"Fine" said Joe, turning his right leg towards her "take it, but I'm not your enemy"
She studied him for a bit longer, then abruptly lowered the shotgun.
"Talk then" she said impatiently.
Joe told her his story from the start, quickly catching up to today. As he spoke, the two women from the car appeared and listened intently.
The woman gave a gruff account of how they had found each other in the days since, and had lived off the village in this campsite until winter forced them to look further away. That led them into a neighbouring town where they first met 'King' Pat. He had a dozen followers, shabby little boys really, but they did whatever he told them to do.
"We call him Fagin. You know, like in Oliver Twist?" She said. Joe knew.
"He told us we had trespassed in his kingdom and that we had to serve him or pay the price."
The price turned out to be that they ‘work’ for him. She refused, and they had been hunted for nearly two weeks.
"We can help" Joe said "come with me"
FAGIN
Joe made two mistakes.
First, he didn't notice the vehicle that had followed him.
Second, he didn't tune in to the sound of another three vehicles approaching as they talked.
By the time he noticed, it was too late. They were in the campsite.
The woman screamed that Joe had led them to her. He ignored her and took action to make up for his failure in observations.
He drew the Glock and emptied the magazine into the radiator of the lead vehicle, sure that he was right to resist this self-proclaimed King.
The car stopped, blocking the gateway, as water poured from the underside of the engine. That wouldn't be moving anywhere soon. The woman fired her remaining loaded cartridge into the windscreen, peppering it with spider webs as the shatterproof glass held.
Joe yelled at her for another way out.
"Field" she yelled, pointing behind the buildings "yours will make it, ours won't"
"Get the girls in. Now" he said to her as he retrieved his rifle from the cab.
As he rounded the Defender and levelled the gun, a voice rang out from behind the crippled road block.
"You in there with the gun" it bawled, full of scorn and cruelty.
"Those women are my property. Everything here is my property and you are trespassing on my sovereignty"
He turned to see the three women dragging another with handfuls of possessions. The one with the gun bundled the others inside and turned to Joe.
"That's the bastard" she said angrily.
"Tell me about the way out" he said.
"Field. Leads back to the road. About a m
ile but rough ground"
Joe's thoughts were pulled back to the blocked entrance, where King Fagin began shouting orders which would leave them flanked.
He fired ten carefully placed rounds at the other cars. Some ricocheted off wheel rims, but most connected. He put two into the only other exposed grill which was the one furthest away. Satisfied that they would not be chased, not by these cars anyway, he jumped in and started the Land Rover. The women were all shouting at once, and he was fairly certain that none of them trusted him.
He drove carefully over the uneven ground, but still bounced his passengers around to their annoyance. He turned to the woman in the passenger seat and asked if her shotgun was reloaded.
"No, I've just used the last two cartridges we had."
He paused when they reached the road and reloaded both of his weapons. He pushed the gate open with the vehicle, breaking the fixings easily and sped down the road to put distance between them and the last place they were seen.
He shouted over the noise of the unhappy passengers, and asked for directions towards England.
King Patrick was fuming. How dare a trespasser step foot in his land and take his possessions. How dare he fire a gun at his boys? He looked at the wreckage of three cars that would never drive again, angry.
He vowed to find this thief, and hang him for his crimes. He sent his cleverest boys to follow them on a motorbike. He would find him.
Joe drove hard for twenty minutes, before stopping and pulling the Defender off the road. He took his rifle and told the women to wait there. He had to be sure he wasn't followed.
He set himself up with a good view of the road, and after a few minutes heard an engine. As it came into sight he saw a teenage boy coming slowly, clearly looking to follow them. He couldn't let that happen.
He hoped he was right, and pulled the trigger.
Humanity: After It Happened Book 2 Page 8
