Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3)

by Martyn J. Pass

  “I've met one of your kind before, you know,” she said without looking at him. “He had a gunshot wound to his chest when they brought him in. He was dead. I mean, actually dead. He'd stopped breathing. I was about to send him outside to an unmarked grave when suddenly his hand shot up and grabbed mine. I've never been so scared before in all my life.

  “The next thing I knew he was climbing off the table. The wound was gone and he was holding the slug in his other hand. He didn't say a word. He just dressed himself and walked out of there. I never saw him again. After that I thought I'd imagined the whole thing. I thought he might have even been a ghost of some kind. Then I saw you there, under that wreckage and I knew I hadn't been dreaming and that both he and you were real. Are you...?”

  “No,” said Alan. “We're not. We're people too, just like you and Sarah.”

  “But-”

  “We should ride, Ellen. It is a story that will take some telling and it's one that we should use to pass the time, don't you think?”

  She stood and smiled. “Yes. I think you're right. I do like a good story, after all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Alan told his tale and he had plenty of time to explain it. The trip back across the barren moorland was uneventful and after the previous few days, Sarah was glad of it. Ellen made for good company. She was polite and witty and the further she seemed to travel away from Hope, the more comical and relaxed she became. Everything she saw, every building, every ruined cityscape were fresh sources of amusement for her and Alan was ready with an answer to every question she had. Eventually, Sarah even managed to trick her into being the second stick-thrower for Moll and it earned an even greater look of disappointment from him.

  “What is it?” asked Ellen one night as she daintily launched the log across the woodland. “What have I done wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he replied. “You just broke my dog, that's all.”

  The land soon transformed back into the familiar woodland of her own home, her own county as Alan called it, and before long the settlement of Abbingdon was on the horizon. It felt like they'd been on one of the epic stories she'd read about in her books, like they'd gone on a quest to save the day and were now coming home. The more she thought about it, the more she realised how true that was. They had been on a quest, perhaps one that had started way back when Alan and Moll had first arrived at Pine Lodge and would only end when they returned there. Or maybe, she wondered, the quest might just be beginning.

  The gates to Abbingdon were closed when they arrived and the guard on the wall called down to them with a familiar 'hullo'.

  “We've had no mail for a week,” he cried. “Where've you been, Sarah?”

  “I had an errand to run,” she called up. “But I'm ready for a break now.”

  “Hard work, eh?”

  “You could say that.”

  The gates swung open and in they rode, arriving at the stables and seeing all the familiar sights and faces that were suddenly very new and very fresh to her. But it was only when they walked to Mickey's book shop and found him talking to Michael Nibbs that the quest really did feel like it had come to an end, that the job was done and that she could finally go home.

  “Ellen?” cried the young man when he saw his cousin in the doorway. “Is it really you?”

  “Yes. Yes it is. Oh how good it is to see you, Michael!”

  Laughing with an unbridled joy, he came charging towards her, dropping the book he was reading and throwing his arms around the pale ice lady who flushed a bright pink. They were crying, muttering words that should have been said long ago but which now burst forth with uncontrollable passion, showering each other in forgiveness and apology.

  “Maybe we should leave them to it,” whispered Alan as they watched from the door.

  “I think you're right,” she replied. “But I'm so happy for them.”

  “So am I.”

  They stepped out into the street and Moll, looking and sniffing her way along, disappeared around a bend and was gone. The day was bright and perhaps a little warmer with hints of a Summer not far away, like the soft undertones of a forgotten tune played somewhere in the distance, just beyond hearing.

  “So this is what it's like,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this is what you feel when you've done one of your tasks. Your quests, so to speak.”

  “I've never seen them as 'quests' before,” he laughed. “How do you feel?”

  “Like we made a difference. Like perhaps the world got a little better because we were there and we took action, we didn't just sit back and watch it or ignore it.”

  “It wasn't too hard, was it?”

  “Alan, it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do,” she replied. “But I'd do it again if you asked me and more. What's the alternative? To sit at home and ignore it? You'd miss all that,” she said, pointing back to the book shop. “You'd miss those moments that make living bearable. Nights by a camp fire. Jokes that have your sides hurting. Seeing what you did with the tank. The list must be endless.”

  “I agree,” he said. “So which do you want?”

  “First of all,” she grinned. “Even seasoned adventurers like us deserve a break.”

  “True.”

  “Then... Who knows? I have a feeling something will come our way. Probably when the time is completely wrong.”

  They walked along, passing market stall holders and laughing children playing in the dirt and filth of a settlement so far removed from what was once on that spot. She found it hard to believe that Alan came from another time, from a world so distant that it was now the stuff of legend. She thought about the tank and what it'd been capable of. The weapon with its clever rocket finding the monster in the darkness. It was worrying to think that there could be more of it out there, being used to enslave people and destroy what they were trying to build.

  All those thoughts she pushed to the back of her mind. For now she knew that she was with the man she loved and the man who loved her in return. That was enough for one person to think about.

  They left Abbingdon the following day having made sure that Ellen and Michael were settled in a nice house in the camp. They'd never want for much, given that she could offer her medical knowledge for a handsome price and Michael offered to help out at the book shop indefinitely.

  So Sarah and Alan rode back to Pine Lodge, arriving later that day to the sight of Diane and Lou on the porch, welcoming them with waves and shouts but also with a slightly saddened look to them. The absence of her father there worried her and she sped up, leaping from the saddle to head straight inside.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, handing the reins to Diane.

  “I'm afraid that your Papa isn't well,” said Lou. “You returned just in time.”

  “What do you mean 'just in time'?” she snapped, her heart racing. “How bad is he?”

  Lou said nothing but stepped aside to let her in. The house was cold and the hearth looked like it hadn't been lit for a while. Alan and Moll followed her in but she took the stairs alone, reaching her father's room and trembling as she turned the handle.

  “Papa?” she spoke into the quiet chamber. It was warmer in here and the fire was burning away nicely not far from the chair in which he sat under a blanket, holding a book up to his failing eyes. Sarah suddenly felt more afraid than before, even perhaps more than when she'd faced the dreadful searchlights of the tank. This was her home, her way of life that was now being laid siege to and she had no special weapon to combat it. “Papa?” she called again before she reached his side.

  “Sarah?” he whispered. “You're..”

  “I'm here, Papa,” she said softly as she knelt by the arm of the chair. “Oh Papa - what's wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he smiled. “Nothing other than the natural end of things. Don't be afraid.”

  “How can you say that?” she said. “How can you be so calm? Are you ill? Do you need a doctor or something?
I could go and ask-”

  He raised a feeble hand and stopped her with a look. She clutched it in her own cold hands and kissed it, bringing fresh tears to their eyes.

  “There's nothing to be done,” he said. “I'm just glad you're home. Is Alan with you?”

  “Yes Papa, he is. We've got one heck of a story for you.”

  “Good. I do like a good story. Help me downstairs, will you?”

  “Of course I will.”

  Alan had lit the fire in the hearth and was already boiling a kettle while Lou and Diane prepared supper. They watched in fear as David hobbled down the stairs, weak and finding it difficult to put one foot in front of the other. Sarah looked at Alan and saw that he was as heartbroken as she was, perhaps even more so given that he'd known him from when he was just a boy.

  “Not much justice here,” croaked her father as she helped him onto the couch. “You're twice my age, maybe more and here I am all feeble and pathetic.”

  “It's all about diet, David,” laughed Alan. “I told you to cut back on the bacon sandwiches.”

  “You're right there.”

  The fire blazed away but David still pulled the corners of a blanket around his shoulders, shivering as he did so. Sarah, barely able to contain her sorrow, went into the kitchen to prepare some tea. Alan followed.

  “He's dying,” she muttered. “He was fine before we left. What happened?”

  “It's a cruel world,” he replied. “He's done well to last this long.”

  “Imagine if we'd been delayed any longer. Imagine if-”

  “But we're here now, aren't we?”

  She nodded but inside her heart was pounding away, desperate for some kind of hope, some chance that he might live a little bit longer, maybe get him another year or more.

  “Do you think Ellen would... No, you're right. It wouldn't be fair, would it?” Alan shook his head. “Can we take any more? I mean, how bad is it going to get? How much more is life going to throw at us?”

  “That's just the way it is, I'm afraid. The hits will keep on coming and we've just got to take it, keep pushing forward, keep moving on. That's the only way to make it.”

  “But make it to what? What's the point of it all? Sometimes it just feels like we're hopping from one sadness to another, like it's just trying to break us.”

  “But it won't, will it?” he said. “We won't let it.”

  “I don't know anymore, Alan. I just don't know.”

  The days drifted by and winter retreated back to the colder corners of the world, giving way to an early spring that was much more welcome. The wild flowers around the house began to bloom and the trees began to put on their summer coats again and for a time everything looked lush and verdant and hopeful.

  Alan's Shire horse was still unruly to ride on the days when he took it out into the fields to roam or rode up to Abbingdon to check in on Ellen and Michael. Sarah went with him sometimes, but most of her days were spent with her father, watching him deteriorate in slow degrees. It was painful to watch but she endured the hardship with a smile and a cup of tea, spending as much time as she could with him when he was awake and sleeping herself whenever he dozed off in his chair or asked for his bed.

  The waking moments were spent in books, taking him by the hand to worlds he could walk in, run in and even be happy again in. She read book after book, day after day and when the end began to show itself by the ticking of the clock, Alan suggested that he read his own works, telling him of the past, of that mythical world where everything was golden and happy, where carriages ran on power taken from the sun and where books became living, breathing things.

  “Was it really like that,” David asked him one night when they were reaching the end of the second book. “It just seems so hard to believe.”

  “I don't think you'd have enjoyed it there,” laughed Alan. “It wasn't all sunshine and smiles. There was a darker side too.”

  “There always is, isn't there? We never seem to catch a break these days. Anyway,” he coughed. “I'm going to a better place now. I'm going to where my wife waits for me. It won't be long now.”

  “Papa,” cried Sarah. “Please don't speak like that.”

  “But it's true, love. It's just part of being alive. We die. Fact. I'm just grateful that it's going to happen here and not out there at the hands of some Scav or Slaver. Not many people can say they died in their home anymore.”

  The fire was burning low and Alan got up to throw another log into the hot coals. Moll, as always, was lounging on the rug. Sarah sat in her chair with a blanket around her shoulders and the beautifully bound book was open on her lap with Alan's handwriting there before her. Even Diane and Lou were there, sat on chairs near the hearth with mugs of tea. Her father was right - this was a wonderful place to say goodbye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  David died that night. Sarah woke in the morning and she knew even before she got out of bed that he was gone. Something had changed and even though the sun was streaming in through the window and the birds were in the trees, singing their chorus, she knew that he was dead.

  Alan was already up; his side of the bed was empty and his boots were gone. Climbing out from under the covers she got dressed and left her room, heading up the stairs with soft steps, worried that she might wake him which she realised was absurd. Nothing could wake him now.

  Alan was sat in his reading chair which he'd drawn up to the head of the bed. His enormous hand dwarfed that of her father's but he held it still, even though she knew it would be cold and lifeless. When Sarah pushed open the door wider, he turned and looked at her and smiled. The tracks of his tears were still there on his stubbly cheeks where his beard was starting to grow back.

  They said nothing. Sarah, standing in the doorway, looked down on her Papa and felt nothing but joy. She was glad that his suffering had come to an end and that they'd been able to say goodbye in their own way. In a world where death usually came with such sudden violence and terror, this was a blessing. The transition had begun the moment they'd returned from Hope and in all those days she'd said goodbye with every tick of the clock, every rising sun and every silvery moon. Words that were meant to be said were finally said. Thanks and forgiveness and laughter had passed between them. It was the end they wanted, the end all love needed.

  They buried him in the garden next to her mother and her daughter with the sun on their faces and the fresh blooms saluting his passing. Alan himself lifted his body into the ground and marked the place with rocks and stones while Sarah watched, weeping and broken and thinking of all of them, together, and her left behind. It was hard to see the three identical mounds there, to think of her being the last one alive and had it not been for Alan she might have been tempted to join them long before she was meant to.

  Afterwards, people from Pine Lodge came up to the house to say their own goodbyes. Gail had visited often and so had those who'd known David for most of his life but now a great procession of people from all ages and races paid their final respects to one of their own and Sarah, lost in all their grief, welcomed each of them.

  It was early Summer when life began to return to normal. The sun was offering a few weeks of warmth between the rain showers and they were able to spend their afternoons sat on the porch staring out at the lush landscape which had returned with a verdant passion that only nature seemed capable of. Sarah sat with a book open in front of her and a glass of cold orange juice on the table beside her, reading the last few pages of a novel that Alan had brought back from Mickey's shop.

  Alan himself was throwing a stick across the grass for Moll, watching as the animal tore up great clods of dirt as it skidded to a halt to try and catch it mid-flight.

  “Look what you've started,” he said. “I can't get her out of the habit now.”

  “What's the harm in it?” she laughed. “It keeps her happy.”

  “Happy? Look at her, she can't help herself. She's gone mad. If it isn't a stick then it's that ball I found the other
day which she promptly chewed into pieces. You broke her. Admit it.”

  Sarah laughed and turned the page. It was a warm day and even Moll was panting as she ran back and forth from the porch to the far end of the field. The heat haze coming up from the ground masked her view of the road but when she next looked up from her book, there was something coming towards them.

  “Who's that?” she asked, putting a slip of paper in between the pages.

  “I don't recognise him,” he replied, calling Moll back to him.

  The man was on foot and he was walking with a staff and leaning heavily on it. There was a limp to his gait and as he got nearer they could see that he was struggling with blistered feet in boots that were too big for him. He was sweating under his oversized coat and his face was a hot red colour where the sun had burned him. As he got closer, Sarah stood up and went out to meet him.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I'm looking for Bear,” said the man in a broken accent. “I was told to ask around here for him.”

  “Bear? Can you be a bit more specific?”

  The man shaded his eyes with his hand and looked at Alan, then at Moll and pointed to them both.

  “Is that specific enough?” he said.

  “Who's looking for me?” asked Alan, stepping off the porch.

  The man went inside his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper, offering it to him. He took it and began reading.

  “What does it say?” she asked.

  “It's from Ivor,” he replied. “He's the son of Bogdan, one of the NSU soldiers I helped all those years ago. I remember little Ivor, though I guess he's not so little anymore.”

  “He's an old man now,” said the messenger. “He needs your help. I don't understand how he knows you, but I'm not paid to ask questions. In fact, I'm not paid at all.” He laughed and steadied himself on his staff.

  “Are you okay?” asked Sarah.

  “It's been a long journey from the North.”