At night, beyond the walls, every sound appeared to me as a threat. Above, the leaves on the branches rustled amongst each other in the wind, and every time there was a sound in the undergrowth I had to tell myself that it was just a squirrel or some other animal.
I crossed the field in the dark quickly, unhesitatingly entering the next patch of forest. I knew where the body was, and as I approached it’s vague outline in the dark I found myself slowing down in my footsteps. The flies had already begun to buzz around it in small numbers, and while the smell wasn’t yet that bad a small part of me was thankful for the darkness that blocked my view of him.
It was as good a place as any to bury him – I was enough of the way into the forest that I could cover the place of burial with leaves and shrubbery. Even if anybody from Bastion came wandering through here, they wouldn’t find any sign of it.
I checked the safety on the rifle before carefully setting it down nearby. I returned to the burial spot, using the blade of the shovel to outline the six-by-two foot spot, and stopped for a moment, balancing my hand on the wooden end of the long shovel and standing there in the dark.
It had happened so fast… This man had probably been just as desperate as we had in the early days, eating whatever animals from the forest that we could find while subsisting of nettle soup and wild berries. It had occurred to me somewhere in the years leading up to this point that we may have become shades of our former selves – our life goal was to build things back up to the way they were before, to how we lived, with limitless supplies constantly at hand and so that we would want for nothing. We had all taken it for granted, and only realised how important it was to us once that it was all gone.
My conflicted mind, of course, stemmed from the fact that the more we gained, the more we had to lose. At that point, I also realised wat my mother and father used to mean by ‘corrupt politicians’, and why they were so protective over what they had.
In a way, I was corrupt – I was holding the truth about this intruder back from the citizens of Bastion… But did they really need to know? What good would it do? Did it even matter?
He had threatened one of our own, though, and I looked after my own.
I took the handle of the shovel tightly in both my hands and thrust it’s metal edge deep into the soil.
***
Hours had passed by the time I had finally refilled the hole, getting past the ominous limp feeling of the man’s body as I pushed it across the ground, before it finally toppled down. I smoothed over the ground, covering the fresh dirt with shrubbery, sticks and leaves, until, by my reckoning in the dark, it looked just like any other area of the forest.
During this time, as I worked away with the small sounds of the shovel and my heavy breathing, the sounds of the forest around me in the dim light had largely failed to register to my ears. I had heard next to nothing.
Right then, though, as I shifted the undergrowth about to cover my tracks, there was a sound in the forest that was too loud to ignore.
Twigs snapped every so often, and that didn’t shake me, but the sound of wood breaking and being crushed occurred, I couldn’t help but give it my attention.
My heart raced infallibly as I dashed over to the rifle, picking it up and swinging the barrel up to face the forest in front of me, in the general direction of where I thought I had heard the sound.
I tried to steady my breathing, but when burying a corpse out in the forest under secretive circumstances there comes a certain level of paranoia. I waited like that for the longest time, my eyes desperately searching the dark for some sign of movement, waiting for something else… But there was nothing. My eyes had adjusted plenty during the several hours I had spent there, and with them I perceived no threat in the slightest.
Finally I lowered my gun, keeping it in my hand as I returned to the job at hand.
When it was all over I stood there and stared down at the ground. He would be lost, now – nobody would ever remember him. He had survived the outbreak, but now he had been killed over the hunger that had come around… And above all of that stuff, he had been out there for fifteen years. Who knows where he had been living up until now? Why had he left his previous place? Was it just food? What kind of stories would he have had to tell? What kind of man had he been?
Had he always been like that?
I didn’t believe in a heaven or a hell any more after everything that I had seen… But, still.
‘I’m sorry it had to happen like this. You must understand that killing you was the last thing I wanted to happen, but you threatened the life of one of my own, and that isn’t something that I can let slip past me. These people trust me to look after them, and I intend to do that to the best of my ability.’
I took a deep breath as I stood there in the quiet dark of the forest. I was about to leave, before I searched in the undergrowth for a stick and planted it into the ground, up right, at the head of the grave. It was big enough to matter, and small enough not to be seen.
Retrieving my things, I set off back towards Bastion.
***
Getting back into the town wasn’t much of a problem – I copied the same method I used to get out, and it worked just fine for me.
It was around midnight, and all was quiet. I made my way silently into the house and, in a change of routine, took the gun and the shovel upstairs with me, setting them up against the wall opposite my bed.
I lit a candle on the bedside table and laid on the well-worn, comfy mattress, watching the long, thin shadows of the two items flicker in the orange light, my head propped up on a pillow. Somewhere in all of that the candle went out, and around that time my eyes flickered shut, as another day in Bastion came to an end.
Part Two
Savages
Chapter Eight
Treehouse
Every day was a fresh slate. I tried not to hold too much over my head and blame myself for these things, but when I saw the shovel and the gun as I awoke, these being the first things I saw, I couldn’t help but think back to the previous night.
In the early morning light I returned the shovel to the shed and the gun to the lockbox, before checking my schedule and seeing that I was due to be harvesting wheat with none other than Hayley, and a few others, that morning.
In the old world Mary had been an accountant – she had entered early retirement just a few years before the outbreak, and when it happened we had eventually run into her. My family had known her for years, and as she had gotten into her 60s her manual labour skills had started to fade.
What hadn’t faded, though, was her organisational skills – she could numbers and information about like nothing I had ever seen. If I was in charge of the place as a figurehead or a general leader, she was unquestionably in charge of the technicalities. She ran everything from information on food supplies, to storage and resources, to designating work and making sure that everybody’s contribution to Bastion was fair.
Just because I was the leader didn’t mean that I didn’t have to put in the hard work too – and that was what I liked about Mary. She didn’t let anybody slide when it came to contributing properly.
I changed into my work clothes and grabbed my gloves, making my way through the streets while chomping away at some raw carrots and bread in the early light – breakfast of champions, I guess. I picked up the tools I needed from the supply shed by the field, greeting one of the citizens I didn’t know on an informal basis – Casey, I think – who had just taken up guard duty on the lookout post by the door. With that, I headed out into the field.
We had no machines, only our hands and the tools that we held, and to say it was a big-ass field was an understatement, particularly when it came to farming it. Over the next few minutes the four others who I was working with, including Hayley, trickled into the field, and we all got to work.
She took up the section by my side, but only after I asked her to – considering how much of an idiot I had been the day prior it was a wonder t
hat she even wanted to speak to me like a normal person.
‘Have a good night, did you?’ She asked.
‘I… What?’ I said suddenly, glaring over at her.
‘Lookout duty. Nice of you to take over from your brother’s shift even if you acted like a bit of a douchebag.’
‘Oh… Right, yeah. Yeah, it was fine,’ I said hurriedly. I had assumed she knew something about me sneaking out, but apparently I had managed to get away with it.
‘Look,’ she started, ‘I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward. I just think you’re pretty hot.’
‘I thought you’d left the thought of us behind it.’
‘What can I say? I had a change of heart.’
‘It’s mutual,’ I laughed.
‘I just see no reason why we should have to stumble around the obvious in a world where we might get killed every other day. What’s wrong with just having a little fun?’
‘Wait, wait,’ I said, ‘Killed every other day? What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, it’s like you were saying yesterday, when people from hundreds of years ago just used to get on with it because they had a short life expectancy. What about the most basic things for us? What if one of us got struck down with appendicitis or something sudden like that? Don’t you think you should enjoy each day as it comes?’
‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘it’s just… Every other finer detail when it comes to stuff like this. I mean, it hasn’t happened yet, but what if somebody in Bastion became pregnant? We have no way of keeping them safe like they did back before the outbreak. I know it’s an ugly truth, but it’s one everybody has to face.’
‘I’m not getting into a discussion with you about sex,’ Hayley laughed. ‘Speaking of which… You wanna hear a joke?’
This was really the way that we made it through hard days of labour and work – a wretched sense of humour. Regardless of who was out in the field working, no matter how reserved they might have had a reputation to have been, the laughter was always uproarious. The jokes and stories were disgusting, dirty, and above all, utterly hilarious.
In no time we had made our way along the lengths of the field, our work done for the day, with still plenty of time on the clock before whatever needed completing next. During our shift, Hayley and I had gotten onto the topic of the treehouse, and by the time I had finished checking everything over, everybody else was headed back to town.
Apart from Hayley, that was. I couldn’t see her anywhere.
I looked about myself, searching the field for her fruitlessly before hearing a strong whistle behind me. I looked over my shoulder into the trees, and without any mistake could see her standing amongst the surrounding forest.
She nodded her head to the side, gesturing towards the deeper parts of the forest, and it took me some miniscule fraction of a second to know what secret she was referring to.
The treehouse.
Giving one last look over the field, and shaking my head with a smile, I set off towards the forest.
I had been there the night before in much different circumstances, but now the light flickered in between the branches and the leaves of the trees above, and up ahead I heard Hayley’s footsteps as she pandered off between the trees.
‘You gonna join me or what?’ Her whispering shout emanated from somewhere untraceable, and I started onwards until I finally reached that tree, hidden amongst the others.
It was perfect, to be honest. The trunk was enormous, and surrounded on most sides by others that not only hid it but supported it. Grafted and bolted deeply into the bark were a series of steps that acted as a makeshift ladder, allowing anybody to climb up.
They stretched up at least ten yards, before finally topping off on a huge slab of wood and metal that acted as the base of the house. We hadn’t been stuck for resources – with an entire world at our fingertips we had as much wood and steel as we wanted, and oh, how we had exploited it. The place even had water filtering to protect it from rain, as well as insulation and various other systems. I had no doubt that it would be just as we had left it those few years ago.
Was she already up there?
‘Hayley? Hayley, are you there?’
I waited, but there was no sound in response.
‘Fine…’ I said, testing the stability of the first few steps with my hands before readying myself, and finally setting off.
With every new step I brought myself further away from the ground – at any second I anticipated that I would go tumbling to the ground, break something and spend a long few weeks enjoying painful rehabilitation.
That never happened, of course. I finally found myself at the top of the tree, clambering up onto the stable platform at the top of tree and wiping myself down before looking about myself.
It was just as I had remembered it. Everything had kept pretty well considering the fluctuating weather that confronted us year on year – the roof, the windows, the shelter of it all. There was only one outlier from the things that were usually up there, of course, this being Hayley, as she leant over in the corner of the huge room, prying open the lockbox in the corner.
She tipped the lid open, reaching into it and removing the various blankets and rugs and pillows that were crammed inside, before throwing them down upon the floor.
‘You remember these?’ She said, laying them out. ‘Could never figure out a way to get a couch up here so we just sat in these like a giant beanbag…’
‘I remember,’ I laughed.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, as we talked and laughed and reminisced, we turned to each other and found our lips just a little way from each other, and somewhere in all of that we found ourselves in a kiss that had been waiting to happen for probably a year.
We ran our hands over each other in the quiet solitude of the forest, far and above the worries and reality of the world below, lost in each other.
Chapter Nine
We Have a Visitor
The laughter had carried on afterwards, and once we had exhausted ourselves we had both fallen asleep up there in the solitude of our make-believe home.
Well, that’s partly a lie – I wasn’t sure whether Hayley had fallen asleep, but I certainly had done.
When I awoke it was midday. There wasn’t even a rustling in the trees, only the twittering of the birds in the branches, singing away. For some time I remained there, looking about the wooden interior of the treehouse. I had this idea that I could stay up here forever, that my days would be endless and that I could live here in the peace of it all.
I looked over to my side and saw that Hayley was nowhere to be found. Through the gap in the wood ahead I could see that she wasn’t stood outside either. There were no sounds other than the birds.
Looking closer at the pillow she had been using, I saw a torn piece of paper had been placed upon it. I took it up and read.
Gone back to town – covering lookout duty for Carl. Come see me at my house tonight if you want.
Topped off with a kiss and a smiley face, I couldn’t help but smile myself.
She had always been eccentric, always full of life… Those were the things that I loved most about her.
I got dressed and finally made my way back down the ladder. At the time I wasn’t really paying attention to many of the things going on around me. I was worrying more about my appearance, whether my hair was ruffled, things like that. Of course I was just being paranoid – that was the way we all usually looked by default. Cosmetics wasn’t exactly a priority above eating, drinking and staying alive.
I’m talking about all of these things – around this time I came slamming to the ground, landing on my feet heavily. I looked down at the base of the tree, retrieving the bag of tools that I had set down there from the field and slinging them over my shoulder, latching the knife belt around my waist and checking that the blade was still safe. All of these things didn’t matter at all considering what was about to happen, but then that’s often the way things tend to go –
the things that have the most effect on us often have a tendency of creeping up on us out of nowhere.
The night before I had heard that cracking sound in the forest – something being ground down underfoot, something deliberate. So when I heard another cracking somewhere in the undergrowth, coming from the deeper part of the forest, I turned to look without hesitation. I didn’t expect to see anything, just like every other time I heard a sound, but it didn’t hurt to look either. One in maybe a thousand times it would be something important.
This was one of those times.
‘Can… Can you help me… Please…?’
I was turning away as I heard the words, but when they met my ears and the gravitas of those sounds struck me I spun on my heel, moving faster than I ever have in my life.
The man, this visitor, stood about ten yards away from me, having appeared through the trees. I had already checked the latch on the holster for the knife, but right then I fumbled for it, pulling it open and swinging it out before me by the handle, the steel glinting in the light before me.
‘Don’t move – don’t fucking move!’ I shouted over at him, my mind casting back to the day before when I had shot the intruder at the farm.
I took in the sight before me. This man looked to be the epitome of weakness – he was supporting himself by leaning up against one of the trees. His face was pale, washed out, and his hair was drenched with sweat. His clothes were dirty and torn in places, hanging off him as if they were too big for him. He looked to be in his early thirties, but at that point it was anything but a guess based on the adrenaline coursing through me.
‘Please…’ He muttered breathlessly, ‘I… I don’t know what happened. Everybody, they just… They’re coming for me… Please… Please help me…’
I was a second away from shouting something else – who are you, where did you come from, what do you want, all of the above – but I never got the opportunity. Without another moment’s warning, the man’s eyes rolled back, his legs gave, and he crumpled into a heap on the ground. He was out cold.
The Survivors of Bastion (Fall of Earth Book 1) Page 6
