by Tim Flanagan
Steven slowly moved along the wall, using whatever plants he could as cover, but being careful not to disturb them and attract attention.
Eventually Georgia, closely followed by Steven, made it to where Tracker was waiting.
Across an open area of grass was a group of trees that would provide enough cover to enable them to reach the walled garden at the front of the house without being seen by the gunman in the tower.
To get to the trees would only be a matter of running for a few seconds but it would expose them to the gunman.
Steven took Georgia’s hand in his. He nodded at her with a reassuring smile. ‘Ready?’
Georgia nodded back.
They leapt from their hiding place, ducked their heads down and ran towards the nearest tree. Tracker immediately followed. Steven felt like he was running so fast that he could easily stumble forward and lose his balance. To his left he could hear Tracker breathing heavily. There was a loud crack like a branch or twig shattering beneath a heavy foot. He glanced to his left and saw Tracker falling forward with his hands stretched out ready to protect him from the fall.
The trees were just a few steps away.
Steven let go of Georgia’s hand. He turned to Tracker who was already picking himself off the ground, and helped him up. As they stumbled into the undergrowth a bullet thumped into the ground at their feet, kicking up a small clump of earth that flew into the air and scattered dirt against a tree trunk.
They quickly moved away from the edge of the trees until they couldn’t see the house at all. That way they would know they were out of sight of the gunman and had reached a safe place. Only then could they rest for a moment and catch their breath. They leant against the tree trunks and gulped in the fresh night air with a mixture of relief and exhaustion.
‘We must keep moving,’ said Tracker in a pained voice. In the shadow of the trees, they could only make out the outlines of each other, but Steven could see that Tracker was holding the leg he twisted when he fell.
‘Let me help,’ said Steven, putting Tracker's arm over his shoulder.
From the safety of the trees they slowly followed a path that took them away from the house and towards a low walled structure with an elaborate entrance. Every couple of minutes Tracker paused to rest his ankle by holding onto a tree for support, but within seconds he stubbornly pushed for them to continue.
The outside of the walled garden was constructed from yellow coloured sandstone uprights and plants trained to grow against the brickwork. The entrance was a grand and ornate triangular roofed porch with columns and archways framing the gate into the walled garden. The three of them crept slowly and cautiously amongst the plants that bordered the wall until they reached the lighter coloured and exposed stonework of the porch. From there they looked back up the slope towards Osborne house. They could make out the top of the tower on the right of the house, which meant that whoever had shot at them, might also be able to see them enter the garden and send guards in to find them. In the sky beyond the tower the creatures appeared to have resumed their feeding on the dead body that was chained to the statue. Black shadows hovered in circles before dropping weightlessly towards the ground as another one flapped its way back into the sky.
The familiar sound of a gun shot echoed in the air from a distance away. The creatures stopped swooping down on their meal and cautiously circled in the sky, waiting for it to be safe once again.
‘Sounded like it came from the back of the building,’ said Tracker. ‘We’re too far away for them to be shooting at us.’
‘Maybe a creature was trying to break into the house,’ suggested Georgia.
‘If the guards' attention is on the creatures at the moment, we should get inside the walled garden and find somewhere to rest,’ Steven said.
He helped Tracker through the porch and into what seemed like another world; the air inside the garden was warmer and more humid than it had been amongst the trees. They followed a path around borders of plants towards a series of pitched roofed greenhouses that ran the length of one side of the garden. Steven opened a door to the first one and walked inside. Amongst the tropical plants and fruit trees that were growing was another door which opened into a workshop at the back of the greenhouse. Here the roof was tiled and the walls were hidden by staging piled with terracotta pots of different sizes, wooden canes, string and labels. Around the floor were bags of compost, some work benches as well as piles of Hessian sacks and a collapsible stool. Steven went back to help Tracker into the greenhouse.
‘You can rest your ankle in here,’ Steven said as he arranged the sacks to form a makeshift bed for Tracker. He hobbled over to it and collapsed with a sigh of relief.
‘You take the stool,’ Steven told Georgia. ‘Try and get some sleep. I’ll keep guard out here.’
Steven walked back out into the greenhouse and stepped amongst one of the displays of plants. He sat down on the ground and hid himself amongst the exotic fruit trees, ferns and thick leaved plants, making sure that he had a good clear view of the entrance to the walled garden just in case they should receive any visitors.
Then they waited.
23. The Trail of Blood
Steven had become quite comfortable nestled amongst the soft ferns in the warm air of the greenhouse. During the night he had focused his attention on the porch to the walled garden, but no one ventured from the house to search for them. After a while he began to watch the creatures instead. From the amount of time they spent circling around carefully examining the ground, it was obvious that the abundance of food was not as easily available as it initially had been. They seemed to concentrate their nightly attacks from the sky above the house, feeding off what was left of the man on the statue, and attempting to break into the house, where they knew there were humans. Several hours after they had entered the greenhouse and despite his best efforts to fight it, Steven slowly dropped off to sleep, his eyes no longer able to hold back the tiredness that overwhelmed his body. Since he had travelled on the train to Parsley Bottom to investigate the meteor landing, his life had been in complete turmoil. And his body was exhausted and he could do nothing more to fight it.
He felt the warmth of the sun that penetrated through the glass roof of the greenhouse and onto his face and knew that it must be daytime. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath and rubbed his face, in an attempt to wake himself up. He had no idea of the time, but so far, no one had arrived to work in the garden. His little den amongst the plants was small and restricted his view of the whole garden, so he shuffled out of the gap and stood on the paved path that wound between the greenhouses. He stretched his arms out and arched his back which was stiff from being in the same position for so long, then he began to take a good look around him. The door to the workshop where Tracker and Georgia had slept was slightly ajar.
Steven's eyes were drawn to the path that led into the workshop. There was something not quite right about the smears of mud that stained the herringbone brickwork. His eyes followed the path back to where he was standing and all the way to the door to the greenhouse. There was a trail of dark spots, some trodden on by shoes leaving random patterns that matched the sole of a boot. Steven crouched down, intrigued by the marks. Most of them were dry and looked like dark splashes of mud or tar, but where condensation and dew had fallen from the thick glossy leaves of the tropical plants, the marks were still damp.
And they were red.
Steven realised that the stains and smears were blood. It had either been walked into the workshop by someone or something, or left behind as something left. Panic flashed through Steven's mind as he thought about the possibilities for the blood. Had some of the guards come from the house and attacked his friends inside the workshop and taken them away injured whilst he had slept?
Steven pulled his gun out from between his belt and trousers and slowly walked over towards the workshop door. He could see the trail of blood beneath the door and inside the entrance to the room.
; He pushed himself against the wall beside the door and listened. He could hear a slow gentle breathing sound so knew that someone was still inside the workshop. Peering through the gap between the door and the frame, Steven could see the fold up chair that he had given to Georgia to sit on.
The chair was now empty.
Steven tried to see inside the room as much as he could without moving the door. A change in the shape of a shadow drew his attention to the other side of the wall he was standing against. There was definitely someone still inside the room, but there was no way of knowing if it was Georgia, Tracker, or an intruder.
Steven quietly pulled away from the door and crept along the path inside the greenhouse to the next door. He hoped that the rooms might be interlinking so that he would be able to see if Georgia and Tracker were still inside the room or not.
The next door he came to was identical to the workshop. He pushed it slightly open so that he could squeeze through the gap and into a storeroom that was stacked with wooden crates, dried bulbs packed with straw, as well as boxes of seed that must have been salvaged from a garden centre. To the right of the room was another wooden door that should also lead through to the workshop.
He moved towards it, making sure that his feet didn’t knock anything on the floor and betray his presence. The door was old and dry and there was a gap between two of the vertical wooden slats that was wide enough to squint through and get a view of the inside of the workshop. Standing beside the door amongst the blood stains on the floor was the familiar shape of Georgia nervously waiting. On the floor, tucked beneath the shadow of the wall the body of Tracker still slept.
Steven went out of the storeroom and back towards the workshop.
'Georgia, it's me,' whispered Steven at the door, not wanting to startle Georgia.
Georgia's face nervously peered round the side of the wall and looked through the gap.
'I heard movement and wondered if we had company,' she said with relief.
Steven pushed the door open. It swung into the workshop over the top of more dried up splashes of blood. Georgia followed Steven’s gaze.
'What is it? Mud?' she asked.
'No, it's blood, and it comes along the path and into this room.' Steven swung the door open as wide as possible to let in the daylight. Combined with the light that came in from a high window, the room was divided by varying degrees of light. As they followed the trail of blood into the room their boots disturbed the dust on the ground and kicked it into the air. The splashes of blood led them directly towards the make-shift bed where Tracker was sleeping. Layer upon layer of thick Hessian sacks provided a cushioned and warm bed for him, but beside his leg was a dark pool of blood that had soaked through some of the sacks.
Steven knelt down beside Tracker's head and placed a hand gently on his shoulder to avoid surprising him.
'Tracker,' he whispered into the sleeping man’s ear.
There was no response.
Steven tried again. 'Tracker, wake up.'
This time there was a response. Tracker’s eye lids sprang open, then remembering where he was, he immediately reached for his gun and began to sit upright ready to fight or run. Steven placed a hand on his chest.
'Stay there,' he said. 'I think you've wounded your leg.'
'Must have been when I fell last night,' Tracker replied warily. 'I thought I felt something catch on my leg.'
Steven lifted the bundle of sacks that covered the lower part of Tracker's body. The fabric around the calf of his left leg was soaked in blood. Steven carefully rolled up Tracker’s jeans until he could see the calf muscle.
'Have you got a water bottle,' Steven asked Georgia. She went over to the chair she had been sitting on during the night and picked up what remained of her water.
'There's a first aid box over here as well,' she added, taking the box off the wall and taking it to Steven.
'I think one of the gunman’s bullets must have grazed your leg,' he said to Tracker. Steven tipped some water onto some thick gauze from the first aid box and began cleaning Tracker’s wound. Once the blood had been cleaned away he could see a clean line in the skin that went deeper into the red fleshy part of the muscle where a bullet had glanced Tracker’s leg. Steven gathered some more gauze, found some adhesive tape and began strapping it tightly against the wound.
'Do you think you will be ok to stand?' Steven asked.
'Only one way to find out,' replied Tracker with a smile. He swung his legs off the pile of sacks and onto the floor. Using Steven for support he lifted himself up and began to slowly put weight through his injured leg. With a wince he managed to hobble around the workshop.
'It's fine,' he said. 'Just stings a bit.'
'Shhhh,' said Georgia in a whisper from near the door. She closed it so there was only a small crack between it and the frame, immediately reducing the amount of light that entered the room.
'What is it?' asked Tracker.
'The community has just arrived for work,' she replied.
24. Rallying the Troops
Steven, Georgia, and Tracker watched through the gap in the door as armed guards walked lines of dejected looking people through the porch and into the garden. They all seemed to walk in unison with each other, moving their legs at the same time like well drilled soldiers. Every time their right legs struck the ground a strange metallic jingle filled the air. All of the survivors seemed to obediently taking up position beside different squares of the garden. As one line of survivors walked past the greenhouse Georgia could see what was making the metallic noise. One leg of each survivor was chained to the person behind as if they were slaves. That was why they had to walk in unison with each other.
The lines were divided into groups of two or four people, depending on the size of the plot they were going to be working on. Long lengths of chain were then attached to large metal rings that had been secured onto the brickwork around each side of the garden. Each worker was chained to the ring with just enough length so they could work their portion of the garden. Nobody put up any resistance to being chained; they seemed to be accepting of their situation. The survivors of the human race had been turned into mindless slaves that obeyed instructions without question. However, they probably knew what the alternative would be if they dared to stand up and fight against their guards; there was a constant reminder chained to the statue of Andromeda in the terraced gardens behind Osborne House.
'What shall we do if the guards come in here?' whispered Georgia.
'I don’t know,' replied Steven. 'We won't be able to integrate ourselves into this gardening community if they are all chained up. We would have to chain ourselves otherwise the guards would notice that something wasn’t right.'
'How many survivors can you see?' Tracker asked, his mind clearly on something else.
All three of them counted the survivors, they were easy to spot by the way they held their heads down and avoided eye contact with the guards.
Steven was the first to answer. 'I would say twenty.'
'I agree,' said Georgia. 'Why do you ask?'
'Twenty seems like a good number to start a revolution to me?' replied Tracker with a smile on his face.
Steven and Georgia turned to face him, each with a smile of their own. They knew that Tracker couldn’t have left the survivors to their fate with Coldred.
'What have you got planned?' asked Steven.
'The guards have to be our priority. The walled garden is enclosed and protected from the outside. No one can see in, so the rest of the community, especially those in Coldred's council, wouldn’t know about the revolution until we made our way into the house. I see four guards, each with weapons. Combined with the weapons we have and any tools we can find in the storeroom and workshops, most of these twenty can be successfully armed. We could even sneak back to the stash we left in the tree above the car to get more weapons and ammunition when needed.'
Tracker quickly told them his plan to disarm and capture the guards, but as
he would not be able to move around very quickly, it would put Steven and Georgia at greater risk.
Georgia dipped her fingers into the blood that had dribbled from Tracker's wound onto the Hessian sacks then wiped her fingers against her face, smearing the blood across her cheeks and forehead. Steven found some thick chunks of wood and passed one to Tracker.
Georgia bravely stepped out of the workshop and walked along the path towards the door to the greenhouse. The survivors were being handed their tools for their days work. Hoes, trowels, spades and forks that had been propped up inside a tool shed next to the greenhouse were being distributed by one of the guards. He was the first to spot Georgia walking out of the greenhouse.
'Who are you,' he shouted clutching his gun nervously and aiming it in her direction.
'I'm unarmed,' she replied lifting her good arm above her head for him to see that she was no threat.
'What's wrong with your other arm?' asked another guard, pointing to Georgia's arm that was bound against her chest.
'I broke it,' she lied.
One of the other guards walked up beside her.
'Have you been hiding inside the greenhouse?' he asked.
Georgia nodded. 'My friend is in there. He's hurt.'
The guard looked at the blood on her hand and face.
'You two go in and see what's wrong with her friend. If he's injured or diseased, put him out of his misery,' instructed one of the guards that seemed to be in charge. 'As for you,' he said looking Georgia up and down, 'you're not going to be good for much with only one arm working.'
