by Mark Gordon
Chapter 82
A Homecoming
“Look at that,” said Sally.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” replied Bonnie. “You wouldn’t think anything was wrong.”
They were sitting in the sun on the front porch watching Gabby, as she ran and played with a small group of children on the grass in front of the house. Over an hour ago, after Gabby’s emotional meeting with her followers, Bonnie had decided to leave the gate open, as a sign of friendship and unity. She wasn’t sure how the people outside the fence would respond, but she hoped that it wouldn’t turn out to be a poor decision. After a few minutes, however, she knew she had done the right thing. At first, Gabby’s followers had simply carried about their normal routine - the children playing games together, while adults hung out washing, prepared food, read, or just chatted to each other. Then, almost apologetically, a boy about Gabby’s age, wearing a woollen beanie and clothes that were a little too large for him, stepped tentatively through the open gate, and stood gazing up towards the house. After a couple of minutes, he became confident enough to walk up to the porch where Bonnie was reading to Gabby. He paused at the bottom of the porch stairs and stared at his feet. Then he looked at Bonnie shyly and asked, “Can Gabby come play?”
Gabby looked up at her mother, her face full of hope and anticipation, while Bonnie looked at Sally for advice, but she simply shrugged and smiled. Bonnie looked down at her daughter, and felt a slight tug in her heart as she replied, “Go and play, but stay inside the fence.”
“Yay!” yelled Gabby, as she ran down the stairs, taking the boy by the hand as they ran squealing happily towards the pepper tree.
Sally looked over at Bonnie. “Are you crying?” she asked, not entirely understanding her friend’s reaction.
Bonnie wiped tears from her eyes as she watched Gabby and the boy running around and around the old tree together, laughing when one of them fell over its gnarled old roots. Her heart was in turmoil because she felt as if she had just given her daughter a beautiful gift, but in doing so had also released a small part of her, to forces that she couldn’t control.
“I’m okay,” she said, as Sally put her arm around her.
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset. Gabby looks so happy”.
Bonnie looked at Sally. “Yes, but I know that it can’t last.”
-
It was mid afternoon, and Sally and Bonnie were working together in the vegetable garden, while Gabby kicked a football around with the other children. Bonnie was trying not to be overly protective, but every few minutes or so she stopped planting and glanced up secretly to make sure that Gabby was okay.
“She’s fine,” laughed Sally, as Bonnie snuck yet another peek at her daughter.
“Oh God, I can’t help it. You’ll understand one day when you’re a mother!”
“No thank you. I wasn’t keen on the idea before the event. Now there’s no way I’d ever bring a baby into this world.”
“Fair point,” said Bonnie, as she poured a row of corn seeds into the furrow she’d just created.
“Would you have another child?” asked Sally. “I mean, if you met the right man.”
“My philosophy is to never rule anything out,” she answered cryptically, as she raked damp brown soil over her seeds and stamped it down with her foot. “It makes life more interesting.”
Then, without warning, Gabby screamed from across the yard. Bonnie stopped what she was doing and started to run in a blind panic, but when she saw Gabby’s face, she realised that it simply been a scream of joy. The little girl was racing down the path as fast as her legs would take her. Elvis galloped through the gate and jumped on the little girl, who fell to the ground laughing as the dog licked her face and wagged his tail furiously. Sally joined Bonnie in the unexpected reunion, and they hugged Elvis together, as people watched curiously from outside the fence.
“Where’s Kate?” Sally asked, looking around in anticipation.
“I don’t know,” Bonnie answered, as Matt, Dylan and Montana came striding through the crowd, towards them.
“Oh my God!” Sally exclaimed, as she ran down the path to her friends, before throwing her arms around Dylan.
“What happened?” she asked, through tears of joy.
“It’s a long story, and we’ll tell you later,” he replied. “More to the point, though, where the hell did these people come from?”
“It’s a long story,” she said, laughing. “We’ll tell you about it later!”
Bonnie had joined Matt and Montana just inside the gate, as Gabby rolled around on the grass with Elvis.
“Well hello, you guys!” she said, warmly hugging each of them in turn. “We were really worried about you. Where have you been?”
“Trouble with marauders in Carswell. I’ll fill you in later,” he replied, as he turned and pointed at the crowd, “What’s going on here? What’s happened to my farm?”
“Let’s go inside and get you something to eat. I’ll tell you after you’ve had a chance to clean up a bit. Is Kate with you?”
Matt and Montana looked at each other, and Bonnie realised immediately that something was wrong.
“No,” said Matt. “She was attacked by a feeder. She didn’t make it. We buried her this morning.”
-
Matt, Dylan and Montana ate as if it was to be their last meal. While they had been showering and changing out of their filthy clothes, Bonnie, Sally and Gabby loaded the table with mounds of food, knowing that their friends would be famished. Then they watched with amazement as bowl after bowl of leftovers were demolished, along with sandwiches, cakes and fruit, all washed down with juice or cups of tea.
“When was the last time you guys had something to eat?” asked Sally, sitting happily beside Dylan, with her hand on his knee.
“I’m not sure,” he mumbled through a mouthful of meatballs. “But it seems like forever ago.”
As the feeding frenzy died down, and plates were pushed away from bulging bellies, the questions started and the conversation jumped around from one topic to another as the incidents from the last few days were relived - stories of being trapped in caves by feeders, captured by marauders, and the deadly game that had been witnessed by Montana at the school. Matt told them about Kate’s death, and they became quiet shed tears, especially when Montana shared her guilt about the fact that they had not been to visit her. Bonnie and Sally, too, had their stories to tell and when they had finished trying to explain the presence of the group outside the fence, the others had questions of their own - “Would the threat be from marauders or feeders?” and “How many more people will come?” and “Can they fight?” and “Can we trust them?”
The biggest question, however, was the one that nobody really wanted to raise. Its answer was unknown and full of menace, so it remained unspoken as the other topics were analysed in minute detail, until the threads of those conversations became exhausted. Unsurprisingly, it was Bonnie who finally breeched the topic, and once she did, it was as if a dam had burst, the implications of the question, cascading forth, powerful and frightening in equal measure.
“Do you think we should consider heading west?” she asked, and for a moment everyone was silent.
All eyes turned to Matt. Everybody at the table knew that Matt lived for 'Two Hills'. It was where he was born, and he had made it clear that he intended to stay. It was a direct link to his parents, and by living and working on the farm, he was honouring their memory.
“You know I can’t leave,” he said flatly. “Everything I need is here.”
“What about the warnings?” asked Bonnie. “Those people out there are expecting some kind of major attack on Gabby. They’ve come here to protect her.”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “These visions that people are having aren’t always accurate, are they? Gabby said someone wasn’t coming back from our trip to the caves, but we all survived, right?”
“Kate didn’t come home with us,” Montana reminded him, gent
ly.
“Oh come on!” Matt argued. “Gabby said that one of us wouldn’t come home! She wasn’t talking about Kate!”
“She didn’t specify,” Bonnie responded. “She just said that someone wasn’t coming home. I think she turned out to be correct, don’t you?”
“This is ridiculous!” Matt exclaimed. “Nobody knows for sure that we’re going to be attacked, and I’m quite happy to stay here in Millfield, where I have a home and I feel safe. I don’t know why those people have turned up at my farm, or how the word got around, but they don’t belong here and tomorrow I’m going to tell them they’re trespassing and ask them to leave. This is my farm, not theirs!”
Matt stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the screen door behind him.
Bonnie spoke up. “Listen guys, I don’t care what Matt says, but something’s going down soon, and we need to be prepared. I don’t know what you all want to do, but if I have to, I’ll take Gabby to Diamond Creek by myself.”
-
Matt was in the big shed, polishing a motorbike, when Sally found him a short while later. He didn’t acknowledge her presence when she entered; instead, he just concentrated on repeating uniform, circular motions with the cloth, over and over again, making sure that the chrome gleamed like new. Sally walked over and sat on an upturned milk crate and watched him. She knew that Matt was struggling with this new world order more than anyone. Even Dylan seemed to be coping better, and he had witnessed the horrific death of his own daughter at the hands of her feeder mother.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He continued to polish the bike’s engine cover. “I’m fine,” he said. “Did Bonnie send you?”
“No, Bonnie didn’t send me. I was worried about you.”
“Oh.”
He carefully hung the rag over the handlebars and threw his leg over the bike, settling himself into its worn leather seat. He gripped the throttle with one hand. “This was dad’s bike,” he said wistfully, almost to himself. “I used to go everywhere with him on the back of this.”
“That must have been nice.”
He looked up at Sally, considering her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Yeah, it was nice.”
“It must have been difficult for you. You know ... when he came back.”
Matt lowered his head and nodded. “That’s why I can’t leave. I just can’t! His body is still here, for god’s sake! I can’t run away. I don’t want to.”
“What about the rest of us? What about Montana?”
“What do you mean?”
“We all love you Matt, but if things get really dangerous around here, don’t you think we’ll need to get away? To be honest, I think Bonnie’s almost ready to leave now. Aren’t we more important than the farm? The people who love you? We’re alive, after all.”
Matt looked at Sally, as if he were weighing something up in his mind. “I guess. I mean, of course you are, but I just thought we could stay here forever. I didn’t think I’d ever have to choose between the farm and my friends.”
“Well maybe...”
Then, as Sally was about to speak, all hell broke loose outside the gates.
“Feeders! Feeders!” came the cries, as people screamed and the sound of gunshots rang out, rupturing the peace of the early evening. Matt ran to the house to grab his shotgun, as Sally raced out of the shed behind him, trying to keep up.
