Allen sighed and laughed to himself. It didn't fucking matter. He had his son back. All his life Allen had looked to the future for peace, for fulfillment. When this deployment was finished. When it was time for the next holiday. When his divorce finalized. When he was discharged. When he found Adam.
Well, he’d found Adam. Dammit, he was going to live it. Now, and nowhere else. He had nothing else left to prove, nowhere else to go on his life’s journey. It was here, now, in every second he had to help his son prepare for the hard world he was going to grow into. This was his last and greatest mission. Adam was in trouble, he knew that. But his Dad was here now, and he was the greatest fucking Dad the world had ever seen.
He laughed to himself again. He walked to the barrier that blocked the road leaving the hotel. A large van and two cars. Nothing peculiar in it - the world was full of makeshift obstacles. No passing gang would think anything out of the ordinary. Of course, if they decided they liked the look of the hotel, that was different. But they had escape protocols in place. Secret paths to the jetty. The boats loaded with enough to keep them all alive for a few weeks. The half-way base out on Tulloch Island, for them to regroup and plan their long-term escape if need be.
It was all in the planning.
He rested his arms on the roof of one of the cars, a red hatchback, and scanned Tulloch with his binoculars. Darkness was coming, and it was cold. Time for wanderers to light fires. But he saw nothing amongst the houses that climbed the hills. Nothing along the seafront but the old tired souvenir shops, even sadder now their shop fronts were covered in rust, their toys scattered and broken.
Silent. Just the beautiful sound of the sea, the wind, and the seagulls. What more did one want? How was the crazy world they had all invented ever better than any of this? He looked at his watch. Harriet’s class would have finished by now. She and Andy would be preparing the dinner.
He took one last look across the seafront, down to the beach, smiled, and returned to the hotel, and his new family.
Grace folded her newly washed and dried clothes. She hung in the wardrobe what needed to be hung and folded what needed to be folded, to go away in the chest of drawers. Annie was at the new ‘class’ that Harriet was putting on. Reading, drawing, writing, that sort of thing, Harriet had explained to them a few weeks ago. She had been terribly excited. Grace had tried to feel it too, but she still came back wanting.
Everything was so dry within her. Even the relationship with Jack failed to bring her out. He was patient and put up with her silences, her moments and days of withdrawal. Well, it was the end of the world, he didn’t have the option to be picky, she guessed. Annie had almost broken through a few times. She would pull a face, or dance in the crazy way she did, and Grace would realize she was smiling, spontaneously. Maybe happiness did live someone inside her. She didn’t feel guilty anymore, for the things she had done. These were different times, raw and unbridled, vicious days where death was as common as catching a train.
Something gnawed at her mind though, something black and deep that she couldn’t shake. She stared at the bed. Underneath it was the laptop. The stories, the secrets from the labs, the emails, the revelations. What part had she played in this virus? What work of hers had been assimilated into the broader whole of the research that had resulted in the death of the world? Could she even be sure that the emails were genuine? She couldn’t trust her own thoughts these days. How could she believe words on a computer written by people she didn’t know, and by the Professor, whom she had trusted all her professional life, but who had lied to her all their professional life?
Maybe the best answer was to smash it. Take a sledgehammer and beat the fucking thing to death. Put it all to end, remove its existence. Who was to say that one day they would get power back here, and someone would steal it and read it, and they would blame her. Knives out. Pitchforks out. The lynch mob with flaming torches.
She would destroy it. Not now, she would pick the time and hurl it into the sea… But then, what if she was to find a lab one day, somewhere with power again, but where the information would be shared with people who knew how to use the research to find an antidote, maybe even reverse the effects…
She shook her head, trying to throw her thoughts out of her head. She was tired of these internal battles. She would go and help prepare dinner.
Grace left the room and walked down the corridor. She and Jack and Annie stayed on the third floor. No tactical or strategic reason for the choice of floor - just not too high for the stairs, but high enough to give excellent views out over the sea. Not that she looked at them much. But Jack did, and Annie did. It kept them happy.
She heard talking up ahead, from Abdul’s room. Must be him and Andy. She went to knock on the door but paused. It was ajar. She peered in. Abdul was sitting in a chair, his back to the room. She couldn’t see who he was talking to.
“Oh my,” said Abdul gently. “Don’t you look just beautiful, Daddy’s gorgeous little princess. You will be the beauty of the party indeed,” he said with a little laugh. “And you, Aadil, you are surely the stronger of all the boys there. Come and give me a hug, my beautiful, lovely children.”
Abdul held out his arms and brought them close, hugging himself tightly. He sobbed quietly.
Grace backed away from the door, feeling like a thief, stealing Abdul’s private moments of remembrance and grief. As she walked away, something strange happened. A tear trickled down her cheek. She sidestepped into an empty room, threw herself onto the bed, and wept.
From Jack’s vantage point on the roof, he watched the sun drop below the horizon. Early evening. If Jack was to take one of the little speedboats tied to the jetty he could motorboat his way to Ireland, and then if he had the courage, all the way to America. Or, he could follow the Cornish peninsula round to the south and head for the European mainland. First France, then Spain, Portugal, towards the warmth and gentle calm of the Mediterranean.
And the zombies would follow. And his memories would follow. He closed his eyes. His wife, being torn apart on that dark night in the Cornish back roads flashed as fresh as yesterday. Annie’s terrified and screaming face in the window of the car.
He opened his eyes again. How long would those memories remain? It wasn’t as bad as it used to be, but… What was it like for Annie? She didn’t talk about her Mummy too much anymore. Maybe that was because Jack never did.
He took out his wallet. He had no need for a wallet of course, but it was a habit. The way that people still carried their car keys, or wore their watches even though the batteries had gone. Or the way they kept track of the day. Monday, Tuesday, who gave a fuck. He opened his wallet, and there was a picture of Him, Amy, and Annie. All together on holiday in Spain. Three years ago now.
“Daddy! There you are!”
He tucked the photo away in his wallet and turned around. Annie was at the entry to the staircase.
“You come up here on your own?” he said.
She nodded. She shouldn’t have come all the way up here on her own. What if there had been a zombie on one of the higher floors and… He stopped himself. Did he want his daughter to be safe, or to be strong? She was brave enough to climb up here on her own, to come searching for him. He should be glad.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said. “Everyone’s wondering where you are.”
“Come here a minute,” he said, motioning for Annie to join him. She ran across the space between them, and he held out his arms for her. He picked her up and held her, looking out over the sea.
“That way is west, where the sun is setting.” He turned a little. “And that way is South. To the south is another country called Spain. You remember Spain?”
Annie nodded.
“We’ve been to Spain haven’t we?”
“With Mummy,” she said quietly.
“Yes, with Mummy. That’s right. Mummy loved Spain. And she had a wonderful time on that holiday with you. You used to make her so happy.” He hugged her, and he
felt her hug him back.
Once the hug had run its course, he placed her back down. “Time for dinner, you say? Come on.” He took her hand and led him towards the staircase.
As Jack and Annie reached the ground floor, Jack heard something from the front of the hotel. Loud voices and the sound of feet moving quickly.
“Stay close, Annie,” said Jack, leading Annie through to reception.
Grace, Andy, and Allen were by the door, hiding behind the wall, peering to the drive that led up to the hotel.
Sensing they shouldn’t be in the open, Jack ducked behind the reception desk, pulling Annie down with him.
“Hey,” he shout-whispered to the others. “What’s going on?”
“Soldiers,” said Andy. “I saw soldiers approaching from the front. They’re coming this way.”
“There!” said Grace, pointing to movement by the barriers.
“Ok people, stay back, stay calm, stay quiet,” said Allen, moving his machine gun into firing position. He raised it slowly. “They don’t know we’re here, or they’d be more cautious,” said Allen.
The two figures climbed over the barrier. Hard to see in the dying light, but their army fatigues were visible. Guns slung over their shoulders. As they climbed the cars and lowered themselves to the ground, they took their weapons and raised them. The two men crouched and moved forward slowly, sweeping their guns across the path ahead of them.
“Did you see any others?” said Allen.
Andy shook his head. “No, just these two.”
It never lasted, thought Jack. There was no peace in this world. It was just an illusion. Maybe order had always been an illusion. Chaos always lurking under the surface. In these times it was just more ready to erupt. His heart beat fast. He didn’t have a weapon. He moved in front of Annie to shield her from any attack. He eyed the nearest exit. They would run for it as soon as they could. He picked up his daughter.
“Ready?”
She nodded.
Allen moved into firing position. He lined his gun sight and pushed his finger against the trigger.
The soldiers came closer. Two men, old and tired clothes. Long hair and beards. Hard faces.
Allen lowered his gun. “I’ll be damned,” he said.
All eyes on Allen.
He smiled. “I’ll be damned!” He moved back out of sight and, taking a deep breath, shouted, “Lewis, Singh, stand down!”
The two soldiers immediately fell into a crouch, then looked at each other, their eyes wide open. They tightened the grips on their guns.
“I said stand down Lewis, stand down Singh. I also ordered you to stay with the others,” said Allen. He moved slowly out of his hiding place, his arms held high.
The two men quickly swept their guns to point at Allen. The three stared at each other for a moment. Then all three faces exploded into smiles, and then laughter. The guns where shouldered and they ran to each other, Allen opening the hotel doors. They embraced. Laughter and expletives filled the air, words and a million emotions fighting to be heard.
Two weeks later and Jack was on the roof again. It was becoming his favorite place, a place to escape and see the world. He could look to the west, the east, the north, and the south and imagine the worlds that lay beyond the horizon and the millions of possibilities. And he had Annie with him. She stood next to him, just tall enough to look over the barrier.
The sun was at its highest. There were no clouds in the sky, the water was still and blue below, and it was the least cold it had been in weeks.
Jack and Annie looked not up and out and around today, but down, to the road that led to the hotel from the waterfront and town. It was full of people.
“How many do you think there are, Daddy?” said Annie.
“About fifty, sixty, maybe. Hard to tell.”
“They all look tired.”
Jack thought of himself as having a ragged appearance, bedraggled and pulled through life backward; but to look at those arriving below it was easy to see what the Wilds did to a person. Drained you to a husk. Took everything there was and diverted it all to just merely staying alive. Ragged clothes and hunched up walk, drawing the body in from the elements and the threat of the predator. Patchy hair from malnutrition. Unhealed cuts and open sores. Empty, staring eyes.
“Look, there’s another family. With a girl, she looks about my age,” said Annie, smiling.
She missed her friends, those she had known at the holiday camp. Back then, Jack had been scared of her playing with them, of running around and doing what children did. Not so now. He wanted it, he would embrace it. She should run and hide and explore and get into dangerous places and work it out and survive. There was no place for safety in this new world. Only strength.
He lifted her up.
“Can we go and meet the new people?” said Annie.
“We can.”
“Are they going to be good, or bad?”
They’ll be…” he was about to say good, but he stopped himself. “I don’t know. We can’t know for sure. There will be very good people down there, and maybe some very bad people. We just have to be careful. Kind, but careful,” said Jack.
“But they are Sergeant Allen’s friends?”
“Yes, they are. So they will probably be ok, but still, we can never be sure.”
“Ok,” said Annie. “Even so, I think I should go and say hello to the children. I think they might be scared, at a new place.”
“Ok, Annie,” said Jack. “Let’s go and say hello.”
He placed Annie on the ground. He didn’t let go of her straight away but hugged her for a moment. “Mummy would be proud of you, you know.”
He let her go, and she paused. She smiled, then turned and ran towards the staircase. “Come on Daddy, hurry up.”
“I’m coming,” said Jack, following her to the stairwell.
THE END
Thank you for reading The Fence Walker. I hope you enjoyed it.
Please consider leaving a review. It should only take a few minutes, and it really helps me get my stories out there!
If you haven’t already, check out books 1 & 2 from the series to find out how it all began:
SURVIVING THE FALL: Book 1 of The Fall Series
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KBPYRFM
AFTER THE FALL: Book 2 of The Fall Series
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0738PT6K2
The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker Page 43
