Reaper

by Jon Grahame

  ‘That’s enough for tonight,’ he said.

  They walked along the perimeter of the roof, back towards the door that would lead down into the building. They stopped again to stare over the city and at the hills beyond the ring road. It all looked so normal. You could almost pretend it hadn’t happened.

  Then, without warning, the lights went out. Suddenly, block by block, the city became dark, and died. Glass smashed somewhere in the distance. The strand of music stopped abruptly. Cursed obscenities and moans of despair arose from what had become an underworld.

  Sandra gasped and he put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It had to happen eventually,’ he said. ‘Now we enter a new phase.’

  Back in the van, they disarmed and removed the Kevlar vests, but not their clothes. The darkness outside had made the night ominous.

  ‘I’m not going in the bunk,’ Sandra said.

  He looked at her questioningly.

  ‘I’ll share yours. I need a hug.’

  She lay tight against the wall and he lay alongside her. The night was warm but he still draped a blanket across them to provide the illusion of normality.

  ‘Put your arm round me,’ she said. He lay on his side and did as he was told. They lay silently for a long time although both remained awake. Eventually she said, ‘I killed a man.’

  He squeezed her and kissed the back of her head.

  ‘You had to. He was trying to kill me.’

  ‘It was easy. I didn’t know it would be so easy.’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ he said, and held her and she cried.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not.’

  Periodically during the night, he slipped from beneath the blanket, took a Glock from a holster, and checked the yard and the building. The city was silent. Maybe it was in shock because of its loss of power. The lights had gone out and the music had ended. The apocalypse was now real.

  Chapter 5

  IN THE MORNING, THEY USED THE WOMEN OFFICERS’ showers and bathroom; they had to preserve what they had in the van and Reaper already regretted not stacking more gas cylinders. Jean used the motor home’s oven to grill toast and make tea for breakfast and, before they left, she returned to the canteen and came back with a box of tinned foodstuffs. Reaper checked the street outside and opened the gates. He drove down the street and stopped at The Great Outdoors. Sandra stood outside with the carbine across her chest as he entered. He collected two boxes of gas cartridges for camping stoves and three six-kilogramme cylinders for the van, two double sleeping bags and a single.

  Both Reaper and Sandra were nervous, but no one was about. Jean stored the new additions to their supplies as he drove onto the ring road, heading for the M1. The roads were empty, apart from parked cars and the occasional crash – some, he suspected, had been caused by joyriders after the cataclysm. He kept to a steady speed through the urban areas, ever watchful, and he and Sandra saw occasional faces peering from bedroom windows; the remnants of a confused and frightened population waiting for someone to restore order. An old man in his garden waved as they passed but they kept on going.

  The road ran into countryside for a while and he increased speed. Back into a built-up area and more signs that others were still alive. They came suddenly upon a bonfire at a crossroads outside a pub, around which maybe a dozen people were standing: men, women and children. The group stared in surprise and someone threw a brick. Reaper did not stop.

  Back into the country and a car approached from the other direction. A Range Rover. Reaper guessed no one would be driving old wrecks any more. It slowed at their approach and, at the last minute, drove into their path, perhaps hoping to force him off the road. Anticipating such a move, Reaper drove onto the other side of the road, clipping the rear of the Range Rover. For the first time, he was glad that they had so much weight onboard.

  The Rover turned and followed. Reaper did not attempt to outrun the pursuing vehicle. He took out a pistol and lowered his window. Sandra lowered her window. He glanced at her and her face was determined. She held the carbine upright in her lap and he nodded. He kept the van on the wrong side of the road, forcing the driver of the Range Rover to approach on the inside. As it nosed almost level, Sandra leaned out and fired the carbine. Four, five, six shots. He watched in the wing mirror: the men inside the car panicking; the car’s windscreen shattering; the car veering, hitting the pavement and going through a fence into a field that was below road level, hitting it hard, nose down, and then flipping, end over end.

  Reaper kept on driving.

  He glanced at Sandra again. She was sitting straight in the seat, the gun once more upright in her lap, taking deep breaths. She looked at him and gave a tight smile and nodded. He nodded back, returned the handgun to its holster and pressed the button for the window to go back up. A moment later, she did the same and lay the carbine in a more comfortable position with its butt on the floor. In the back, Jean had diverted Ollie by inviting him to choose another DVD.

  ‘ Ice Age 3 again?’ she said, before slipping it into the DVD player in the bedroom.

  Thirty miles to the M1 took an hour. They joined the motorway and headed north. The highway was empty and invited speed, but he did not exceed 50.

  They passed a car that had crashed into a concrete bridge support and another that had taken off from the tarmac and landed a distance away in a field. A car approached on the other carriageway travelling fast. A Bentley. A man and woman were inside. They exchanged stares of curiosity but made no other acknowledgement of each other.

  After an hour, two Transits approached at a reasonable speed. They slowed, Reaper slowed and he lowered his window. Sandra climbed out of her seat and crouched in the back of the van behind his seat, the carbine out of sight. The two Transits and the motor home stopped on different sides of the concrete and steel barrier that ran down the centre of the motorway.

  ‘How’s the road south?’ shouted a large man who seemed to be all pale skin and muscles. A woman and child sat with him in the cab.

  ‘Clear for the next fifty miles,’ Reaper said. ‘How about north?’

  ‘We joined twenty miles back. It’s clear that far.

  Where you heading?’

  ‘North Yorkshire. Fresh air and hills,’ Reaper said, attempting geniality. ‘You?’

  ‘We heard a rumour about some kind of government in Cambridge.’

  Reaper nodded and they sat and stared at each other.

  They were each committed to their own destinations but, for Reaper at least, and he guessed for the man opposite, this was about as normal a conversation as he had had since it started. The van behind had pulled almost alongside the first van and he could see it contained two white women and an Afro-Caribbean man.

  ‘You got some place to go?’ the pale man asked, making conversation.

  ‘There’s a place I have in mind,’ Reaper said. ‘Other side of York. Could be good.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Good luck!’ he called.

  ‘You too.’

  They each moved off slowly, as if sorry to be breaking the small touch of social contact. Sandra waved and one of the women waved back. Should he have done more, invited them along? He guessed that was what Sandra might be thinking, but the middle of a motorway was the wrong place to make a pitch for survival in a walled holiday village, especially on a moment’s acquaintance.

  ‘Normal people,’ he said. ‘They exist.’

  ‘Thank God,’ she said.

  ‘I hope they make it.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Another forty miles and he slowed and Sandra lifted the carbine to the cradle position. Ahead, two vehicles were parked at the side of the road in the slow lane. A middle-aged man who had been sitting in a folding camping chair between the cars stood up. He carried a shotgun, broken for safety. Now he closed it but held it casually in his right hand, the barrel in the crook of his left. Reaper slowed the van so that they approached at a pace that would not alarm.


  ‘Keep the carbine down,’ he said, and Sandra slipped the safety on and lowered it back onto the floor.

  When they were level, Reaper stopped the van in the outside lane. They could now see a group of people sitting around a camping stove on the hard shoulder, protected by the vehicles, a Volvo Estate and a battered Shogun. Another, younger, man with a beard, two tired-looking women and two children. They all got to their feet. Sandra lowered the window.

  The man with the gun nodded warily, trying to see inside the van, trying to see if it held danger.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘Yorkshire,’ he said. ‘The moors.’

  ‘ Heartbeat country,’ she said. ‘I loved that programme.’

  The man smiled at that comment coming from such a young woman.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘We’re going to Yorkshire, too. Other side of York.’

  ‘Had any trouble?’ he said, glancing at the crumpled front nearside where Reaper had bounced the Range Rover.

  ‘We’ve had trouble,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of trouble around. You?’

  Reaper had been scanning the open countryside beyond the hard shoulder. No cover for an ambush.

  But then who would stage an ambush when you might expect to get one car every two hours. Paranoia, para-noia.

  ‘We’ve been lucky,’ the man said. ‘We saw plenty in Nottingham. That’s where we’ve come from. So we got out. I suppose every city is the same.’

  One of the women stepped forward and said, ‘We can offer you a cup of soup. If you’ve got your own mug.’

  Reaper heard the side door of the van open and Jean stepped out. He felt a momentary flush of panic that eased when he looked again at the rather forlorn group between the cars.

  ‘Never mind soup,’ she said. ‘I’ve got an oven in here. Why don’t we all have lunch?’

  The woman hesitated and Ollie climbed out of the van and stood next to Jean, holding her hand. He looked at the children, a girl about ten and a boy about six.

  ‘Do you want to watch Ice Age 3?’ he said, and the tension evaporated. Reaper realised they were the first words he had heard the boy speak.

  Reaper leaned across to speak to the man through the window.

  ‘We’re armed,’ he said. ‘ But don’t be alarmed.’ Sandra climbed down from the van and took the carbine with her, hung by its strap around her neck. Reaper guessed she looked intimidating. ‘You’re welcome to look in the van,’ he said. ‘There’s no one else. Just Sandra, me, Jean and Ollie.’ The man nodded, looking at the hard-ware, protective vest and Doc Martens worn by Sandra.

  ‘Look. I’d better pull the van in closer in case someone else comes past. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  He reversed and then pulled the van into the middle lane and stopped it parallel to the gap between the two cars. Jean slid open the double doors and invited the women and children inside. Reaper went round the front of the van, his carbine slung across his back.

  Sandra had not gone with the women.

  ‘I’m Reaper, this is Sandra,’ he said as they shook hands.

  The man he had first spoken to said, ‘I’m Gavin.

  Gavin Price.’ He was late fifties, slightly stooped, with a lugubrious face and bald head.

  The second man said, ‘I’m Nick Waite. The Reverend Nick Waite.’ He was late twenties, slim and a lot of hair. His beard was trimmed to his jaw-line. He looked like an extra from a Hollywood epic. After revealing his calling, he paused, waiting as if to see if Reaper would make a comment. Blame him or his God for what had happened. But Reaper didn’t believe in God.

  He didn’t believe much in vicars, either.

  ‘. . . You’ve come prepared,’ said Price, nodding at the weapons.

  ‘It’s necessary,’ Reaper said.

  The man nodded. ‘Hell in a hand basket,’ he said.

  Reaper remembered the comment being made before.

  ‘Are any of you related?’ he asked.

  Waite said, ‘No. I met Judith and Rachel at the community centre. I lived nearby and they’d gone looking for help. We found each other and stayed low.

  The boy is Sam. His parents were neighbours.’

  ‘Then I turned up,’ Price said. ‘The little girl is Stella.

  I found her wandering down the street in shock. I took her to the community centre and found Nick and the others.’

  Reaper said, ‘You’ve all lost people?’

  ‘I lost my fiancée,’ Nick Waite said. ‘Judith is a widow.’ Judith was in her late fifties or early sixties, tall with striking grey hair and a natural elegance.

  ‘Rachel lost her husband.’ Rachel was mid-twenties, blonde, medium height and had a fragile prettiness.

  ‘They’d been married four years. No children.’

  Price said, ‘I lost my wife. We’d been married nearly 25 years. Silver wedding in August. But you either give in or go on, don’t you? I‘d found Stella, so I had to go on. She lost her family. Her parents, two brothers and a sister. She nursed them all until they died. They were all in bed. I went back with her to make sure, pack a few things. The house was immaculate, the bedrooms neat and tidy . . . mum and dad together . . . the baby girl in between them . . .’ He pursed his lips against swelling emotions. ‘The brothers in twin beds . . . they were five and seven. She’d put their teddy bears in with them.’ He shook his head.

  ‘No wonder she was in bloody shock.’

  They said nothing. Stood in a sad group, the imagery vivid. The world uncaring except for the people Stella had found.

  Waite said, ‘By the time we left, gangs were forming.

  Decent people are having a difficult time.’

  Reaper nodded. ‘Same all over,’ he said.

  ‘What about you?’ Price said.

  ‘Sandra is my daughter,’ Reaper said, and the words surprised him.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Price said.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Sandra said, stepping closer to him.

  Reaper put his arm around her shoulders.

  Reaper said, ‘We were based at a police station when Jean and Ollie found us.’

  ‘Based?’ said Waite. ‘You’re police?’

  ‘They’re not police.’ Jean was suddenly among them.

  ‘They’re Special Forces.’

  The young vicar, Nick Waite, widened his eyes in disbelief as he looked at Sandra. ‘Don’t they have an age limit?’

  Reaper felt Sandra tense beneath his arm.

  ‘Listen,’ Jean said. ‘’Don’t be taken in by that butter-wouldn’t-melt look. She saved my life. Killed the man calm as you like, one shot. In the head. Bang. Gone.

  Anyway, lunch is almost ready.’ And she turned and went back to her stove.

  Waite stared with a new respect.

  ‘Is that true?’ he said.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said.

  Reaper said, ‘Why don’t we eat?’

  Jean had conjured another instant stew and they still had bread she had baked the night before. The children sat on the bed and watched Ice Age 3 while they ate. The adults had their food outside. Reaper and Sandra remained standing and kept watch in both directions, spooning stew and juggling the bread. The two men accepted that they were professionals who knew what they were doing, and Jean, in full stream, was probably expanding on their special abilities.

  ‘I don’t know why I said you were my daughter,’

  Reaper said.

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ she said. ‘It’s a way of starting over, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a way of starting over.’

  ‘What about this lot?’

  He raised an eyebrow, but knew what she meant.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Decent people.’

  ‘I think so, too.’

  ‘Are you going to ask them?’

  Jean shouted across: ‘I’ve been telling them about the place we’re going. They can come, can’t they?’ />
  ‘Sorted,’ he said to Sandra with a smile. And, in a louder voice, ‘Of course they can come, if they want to.’

  They wanted to, that was obvious. They had been reassured by Jean’s description of a new Eden and the belief that the special force wielded by Reaper and Sandra would help them survive. The food was finished, camping chairs were stowed and the entire group was preparing to leave when Sandra said to Reaper,

  ‘Incoming.’

  He looked at her and said, ‘Incoming?’ Where the hell had she got that from? He followed her gaze and saw two vans approaching from the south. They slipped the carbines around from their backs and held them ready. He was aware that Sandra now had an audience. The role she was playing was getting deeper. She would be fine. Particularly as he recognised the approaching vans.

  ‘We passed them miles back,’ he whispered, and he and Sandra stepped to the front of the motor home while the others hung back in a worried group. The vans slowed and stopped twenty yards away. The big man who was all pale skin and muscles got out and walked forward. He was unarmed apart from the tattoo of a bulldog on his left forearm.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he said, when he got closer. ‘You’re packing.’

  Others were getting out of the vans behind him: the Afro-Caribbean man, three women – one of them with striking red hair – a child, and a black Labrador dog.

  ‘Change your mind about Cambridge?’ Reaper said.

  ‘Long way, Cambridge. We thought about Yorkshire.’

  He licked his lips. ‘Thought we might go together.’

  Reaper looked at Sandra, a question in his eyes, and she nodded. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said.

  Chapter 6

  THEY CONTINUED DRIVING NORTH, THE MOTOR home in front, followed by the Volvo, the Shogun and the two Transits. Jean, who was standing in the van behind the driver’s cab, said, ‘Looks like we’ve got us a convoy.’

  Reaper glanced over his shoulder and saw that she was smiling. ‘You remember that old film?’ he said.