Reaper

by Jon Grahame

  He needed the road and speed, so he turned it towards the village square.

  Reaper’s body was aching but he got to his feet and sprinted in the bike’s wake.

  ‘Stop him!’ he shouted. ‘It’s Houseman!’

  Some of the arc lamps were still on, and the square remained bright. Reaper reached the corner of the barn to see Houseman almost lose control of the bike as the rear wheel once more skidded on the grass. He levelled the handguns and fired, but had no more bullets. Houseman grinned back over his shoulder, sensing his freedom just up the hill. He didn’t see the Reverend Nick step out from the unlit bonfire at the stone cross, where he had been checking on the bodies that lay there. He was unarmed. Nick stretched his arms out wide and walked directly into the path of the bike.

  Houseman saw him only at the last second, as the bike was gathering speed, and they collided with a sickening thump. The Reverend Nick was thrown sideways, his body suddenly limp, and the bike fell over with a scream of its engine. Houseman rolled through the dirt until his back was against the unlit bonfire at the base of the stone cross.

  The man was shaken and confused but, as Reaper strode towards him, he got to his feet and reached for the handgun strapped to his thigh. As he pulled it free of its holster, Reaper kicked it out of his hand. For a long moment the two men stared at each other, one in fear, the other in contempt, before Reaper dropped his handguns and took the Bowie knife from the sheath on his right leg. He thrust it hard into Houseman’s stomach. He held it in place, close enough to feel the man’s anguished breath on his face, twisted it and thrust again, deeper.

  Reaper stepped away and Houseman slumped to the ground, his hands clasped around the hilt of the blade, the arc lamps throwing the shadow of the cross over his body.

  People were already gathering round the Reverend Nick and Reaper joined them.

  ‘He’s alive,’ someone said.

  ‘Reaper!’

  Sandra’s yell cut across the square and the tone in her voice filled him with dread. Please God, not Kate.

  He started to walk towards the lorry upon which he could see Sandra standing. Someone was crouching next to her. He began to run. As he got closer, he could see Ashley cradling someone in his arms. Reaper reached them, breathless, and looked for hope in Sandra’s eyes. He found only pain. He climbed onto the lorry. Ashley was crying, holding Kate close to him.

  Reaper knelt next to him and the former soldier gently passed her body into Reaper’s care.

  Her life force had gone. Only the shell remained.

  She was dead – snatched from him – and there was absolutely nothing he could do. Reaper looked out over the square, at his people back in control and having to count the cost of their first war. Crying over other lost souls. But Reaper was empty. He had no tears. He held his love in his arms and silently cursed God. If this was the price of living, he would sooner be dead.

  Ashley touched his shoulder lightly in sympathy but did not intrude. Reaper looked across the square again and saw the wounded being tended: Gavin dripped blood from his shoulder as he was being supported by Smiffy; Pete Mack was taking charge, directing help; Cassandra Cairncross and Manjit administered aid to a man with a bleeding leg; Judith, her grey hair catching the light, bent over the Reverend Nick; Pete’s partner Ruth, sat on the steps of the manor house, holding seven-year-old Emma tightly in her arms; fourteen-year-old James Marshall stood by the body of Milo like an honour guard and Sandra, the carbine still hanging from one shoulder, walked alone towards the body of her husband.

  The living go on, Reaper told Kate.

  If Kate’s death was to have any meaning, he would have to help this community they had founded, to survive and prosper.

  Oh Kate, he said, crying within. Why did you have to leave me?

  Chapter 19

  ASHLEY’S DECISIVE MOVE HAD BEEN THE TURNING point of the action. The toll had been severe but manageable, in the greater scheme of things. Eight men and five women died and as many injured. Dr Greta Malone came from Scarborough to help. The real toll was not in the numbers but in the individual loss. All shared a common grave, but the memories were personal; the mourning was personal. Reaper held hands with Sandra during the service. A dull day in September. Clouds in layers, and no rainbow or God-sent shaft of sunshine to offer a hope of life eternal.

  Just death and dirt.

  Reverend Nick, his leg in splints, said words that made many cry. The outlanders from the nearby villages and farms that the Haven had helped to prosper, swelled their ranks, offering sympathy and more tears.

  All Reaper wanted was revenge.

  The dead of Muldane’s army had been thrown into the back of a truck. Twenty-seven bodies. With them went five wounded. Early that morning, Reaper had driven the lorry ten miles south to an uninhabited part of the country and parked it in a field. Sandra had gone with him in the Honda. She hadn’t argued when he told her to wait by the roadside.

  Reaper had climbed into the back of the lorry and shot the wounded. No compunction. They hadn’t believed he intended to kill them, until he fired the first shot. The remaining four called out in fear and protest, begging for mercy. He had none, but he made the executions swift. He doused the vehicle in petrol and set it alight. Sandra drove him back in silence.

  They guessed that perhaps five or six of their attackers had escaped in the confusion and darkness.

  After the funeral, with everyone still gathered, Reaper declared his intention to go to Whitby and remove the remnants of Muldane’s army from there too, and liberate their prisoners.

  ‘I’m going with you,’ Sandra said, and she went to stand with him. Without hesitation, Jenny and James joined them, both in clean blues, wearing Kevlar vests and fully armed.

  The Reverend Nick said, ‘I wish there was another way, but I accept there is not. There is evil in Whitby and it needs cleansing.’

  Pete, Ashley and Smiffy joined them and, without debate, other men, including Shaggy, and a few women, swelled the ranks of Reaper’s regulators. They donned vests and armed themselves.

  They set off immediately. Reaper drove a military Land Rover, with Ashley alongside manning one of the machine guns that had been mounted on the front.

  Sandra was riding shotgun on the RAF truck they had liberated, with Smiffy standing in the back, the second machine gun mounted on top of the cabin. He had six armed personnel for company in the truck. Other vehicles followed, each commanded by one of his trusted few – Pete, Jenny and James. Reaper was primed for war once more, because he had nothing else. The life he thought he might have had, had been snatched away. It filled him with righteous brutality.

  Whitby offered little resistance. They advanced through the suburbs warily, but the closer they got to the town, the more they sensed the enemy remnants had abandoned their stronghold. Reaper stopped the column and called Sandra to join him and Ashley in the lead Land Rover. He instructed the rest of the vehicles to proceed with the same caution, while they went ahead at speed to reconnoitre.

  ‘You’re crazy, you know that?’ said Ash.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  They went in fast, straight down the hill and swerving around the roundabout alongside the inner harbour.

  At the bridge, they stopped. Their arrival caused panic among half a dozen men dressed in black on the other side. They were all that was left of Muldane’s Army.

  They were trying to push two reluctant girls into a Transit van. At the sight of the Land Rover, the men abandoned the girls, who ran back towards the cobbles of the old town. Three of the men paused to fire shots across the water, the others climbed into the van.

  ‘Okay?’ Reaper said.

  ‘Okay!’

  Ash and Sandra said it together, both charging their weapons. Reaper drove across the bridge, straight at the enemy. The men tried to run but the attackers’ firepower cut them down. The van rumbled into life and began to move. Ash shot out its tyres and pulverised its engine with machine gun bullets unt
il it lurched to a halt. Reaper stopped the Land Rover and shouted, ‘Cover!’

  Sandra turned to face the narrow street that led into the old town and Ash kept the now silent machine gun trained on the lorry. Reaper jumped out of the Land Rover, leaving his carbine behind and taking both handguns from their holsters. He skirted round the front of the van, saw movement in the cab, and fired through the window. He jumped up onto the running board and looked inside. It was a six seater: two rows of three seats. The driver was dead but two passengers were alive. They were terrified. Reaper shot them. This was one virus that would be eliminated.

  The back doors hadn’t been properly closed and Reaper grabbed one and pulled it fully open, safe in the knowledge that Ash had the machine gun trained inside.

  ‘Clear!’ shouted Ash.

  Reaper looked inside and saw mattresses, a box of food and cases of beer. The battle of Whitby was over.

  The captives were both shocked and grateful at the speed of their delivery. Muldane had left eight men to guard the town. Three or four more had turned up with the dawn, and the news they brought had caused panic. The convoy from Haven parked on the harbour side and its members mingled with the newly freed population of the town. While they exchanged experiences, the Haven members told the recent captives about Haven and the other peaceful communities that were attempting to achieve a normal life.

  Reaper sat alone on a bench and stared at the boats in the inner harbour that had been unused since the plague. Maybe they would never be used again. The brief action of the morning had not been the catharsis he needed. It had only postponed his mourning. Only now, in the aftermath, did he realise that, while he did not particularly care about his own life, he had put those of Sandra and Ashley at risk by driving into the town looking for a fight. Even so, the revenge he wanted to expiate his loss had not been achieved.

  He wanted more violence and he did not care if revenge was not the answer. Any number of psychologists – if any still survived – might try to tell him revenge was wrong, but they could go to hell. There were bad people still alive and preying on the good and vulnerable, and he would remove them, permanently, wherever and whenever he could.

  It was a fact that the community he was intent on saving contained men and women who did not have his capacity for killing. They were the normal citizens that were essential for the recovery of the human race: people of a softer and more humane disposition, like the Reverend Nick. They would fight only as a last resort, and avoid the killing if they could.

  Only God, Nick would say, had the right to give and take life.

  Nick might be right but Reaper didn’t care. He would be God’s right hand on earth, a right hand that held a Glock or a Bowie knife, a right hand that would dispense justice without qualm or conscience. The bad guys needed to die, and Reaper would kill them.

  The faces of those they had lost rose in his mind: warm-hearted Jean; likeable Milo; the smart-mouthed young rogue Arif; Jamie, to whom he had entrusted his adopted daughter; Kate, who had revived the heart he thought he had lost. Tears prickled the back of his eyes.

  Sandra joined him on the bench.

  ‘They want to come back with us. The girls they used are in a bad way. They are going to need a lot of rest and understanding. They’ll need time.’

  He nodded.

  She went on. ‘Before the guards tried to escape they shot people. It seems indiscriminate. Fourteen men and six of the older women. Those they called the drones.

  There are twenty-four men, twenty women and eight children left.’

  ‘We’ll bury their dead and take the rest home,’ he said.

  Heavy clouds were making the late afternoon prematurely dark, and it suddenly started raining. Neither of them moved.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’m going back down the coast.

  To where I was yesterday.’ Yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime ago. Yesterday was when he had decided to ask Kate to marry him.

  ‘You didn’t tell us what you found,’ she said.

  ‘I found more bastards.’ He looked at her. ‘And I made a promise to two very frightened girls that I’d be back. I’m going tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m going with you.’

  He nodded his agreement. They were alone again, as they had been when they first met and started out on the odyssey that had led them to found a community; that had led them both to find love and then have it wrenched from them. He guessed Sandra wanted vengeance, too. They were a good team. Tomorrow they would dispense more justice.

  Reaper looked up at the sky and was glad of the rain. It hid his tears.

  Coming in 2012 . . .The second instalment of the Reaper trilogy . . .Jon Grahame’s Angel

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