"With you at my side I reckon I've got a shot at winning them over. I watch you; you get on with the juniors and stuff. They just annoy me, and I fucking terrify them. Which is good, don't get me wrong, I want them scared of me. But only scared enough. I need a bit of niceness in the mix. Carrot and stick, yeah? And that's why I need you."
"I can see it now," I laughed. "Lee Keegan, the caring face of crucifixion. So what, you want me to be your conscience? To keep you in line?"
"If you wanna put it that way, yeah. Let me know if I'm going too far. Keep your ear to the ground with the boys. Keep me up to date with how they're feeling. Watch the officers and find out which ones might be a problem."
"Wylie," I said briskly.
"Really? I like him. He's cruel," he said with relish.
I gave Mac my best 'well, duh' expression.
"Yeah, okay," he said. "Well, that's my point, innit. You notice this stuff. We make a good team. Plus, I can rely on you in a fight. And that's important. Coz we've got a lot of fighting to do, I reckon."
"So I'm your second-in-command. I can give orders to the officers, and my job is to back you up and let you know when I think you're going too far. And I'm doing this because a strong ruthless leader is our best chance of survival in a tribal world. That about right?"
"Yeah."
I made a show of considering my response and then I leaned forward and held out my hand.
"All right, I'm in."
But as he took my hand in his all I could think about was what he'd done to Matron and Bates, and how badly I could make him suffer before I ended him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The guard looked us up and down with an expression of distaste.
"What do you want?"
Petts held out a battered Sainsbury's bag.
"We've got vegetables, cheese and milk to trade at the market," he said.
The guard peered into the bag.
"Got any Cheshire?"
"Um, no, sorry. It's just home made stuff. It's kind of soft, like Philadelphia."
The guard sniffed. "Filthy stuff. My wife used to eat that. Shame," he said wistfully. "I did love a bit of Cheshire."
We stood there looking expectant as he drifted away into a soft, crumbly reverie. Williams cleared his throat.
"What? Oh yeah, well, you'd better come in then. Bill will pat you down." He nodded to his colleague, who stepped forward and searched us for weapons. When he was done he pushed the barbed wire and wood barrier aside and nodded for us to go through.
"Curfew's at seven," said Bill. "If you plan on staying you'd best find yourself a bolthole before then. There's rooms at the pub, if you can pay."
Petts, Williams and I walked through the barricade and into Hildenborough.
As far as Mac was concerned this small town, three miles down the road from the school, was our first problem. It was these guys he was preparing us to fight.
To borrow Mac's terminology, their strong tribal leader was George Baker, local magistrate. The man who'd so ruthlessly hanged McCulloch and Fleming was a zero tolerance kind of guy who, like Mac, believed in public demonstrations of authority.
Petts and Williams visited Hildenborough once a week to attend a market at which they would trade the vegetables, meat and cheese they produced. Petts hadn't managed to convince anyone to eat the snails he collected, though.
Markets are a good place for gossip, and Hildenborough boasted what must have been the only working pub for a hundred miles, so it was good place to gather intelligence. The plan was for the others to trade as usual - for some reason Williams was desperate to find a good homebrew kit - while I mingled and got the lie of the land.
The town was well defended. Although it is ringed by open country on three sides, it kind of bleeds into Tonbridge on the fourth, making this the hardest front to defend against attack. To address this they had bulldozed a whole tranche of houses to create an exposed approach, then erected a bloody great fence and put in impressive gun towers. All it needed was a few spotlights and some German Shepherds and it would have been Berlin in the fifties.
Consequently the sides facing open country, where the guards were mostly posted on obvious routes like pathways and roads, were slightly more exposed and would be easier to infiltrate, especially after dark. Knowing this, Baker had imposed a strict curfew. Petts had discovered that the guards patrolled in pairs, with torches, and all wore high visibility jackets to prevent friendly fire incidents.
Before The Cull this part of Kent used to resound with the noise of shotguns blasting away at birds, so the Hildenborough survivors had no shortage of guns and ammunition. But our armoury was far more impressive, so if it came to a shooting match we'd have the advantage. In terms of numbers, Williams thought there were about forty men who acted as guards, and about two hundred residents in total.
Mac wanted me to establish some details about Baker himself, and find out whether he was likely to try and expand his territory.
Petts, Williams and I, all dressed in mufti so as not to attract attention, made our way through town to the market, which was held in front of the large stately home that Baker had adopted as his HQ. It was strange to see streets free of debris and burnt cars. As we approached the big house the cottages increasingly showed signs of occupation; the gardens were well tended, the curtains neatly draped. One thing about the new reality was that everyone who was still alive, no matter what they did before The Cull, got to live in the very best houses in the nicest parts of town. It seemed that in Hildenborough they were proud to show off their newly acquired properties.
Williams told me that the big house used to be some sort of medical centre before The Cull. It had impressive dormitory buildings in the grounds and a big swimming pool. The market, such as it was, was held on the forecourt. A collection of trestle tables had been erected and people were milling about trying to exchange jams, batteries, useless technology, clothes and so forth. There was a barbecue selling burgers and sausages, if you could provide the chef with something he wanted. There was even music from a folkie band, and the pub had laid on a tent and a few barrels of local brew.
The whole thing felt more like a village fete than a post-apocalyptic shambles. A little old lady sat knitting behind a pile of jars containing bramble jam, while a vicar stood proprietorially next to a table piled high with old books. There was an old wooden message board by the entrance to the beer tent and a handwritten note stated that the tug of war would start at two sharp, after the bail tossing and the egg and spoon race, but before the Main Event, whatever that was.
The world may have ended in plague and horror, but Middle England was doing very nicely, thanks for asking, would you like a bun Vicar?
And what could be more Middle England, more 'Outraged of Tunbridge Wells', than stringing people up? Off to one side, clearly visible but mercifully unused at the moment, stood a gallows. I shuddered as I imagined how McCulloch and Fleming must have felt in their final moments, as they stood on the trapdoor waiting for the lever to be pulled.
I let the other two go about their business and made a beeline for the beer tent. I don't like beer much, I'm more a whisky and coke kid, but I had a bagful of leeks to trade so I figured I could swig a few pints and make small talk with some locals. Infiltrate and inebriate, that was the plan.
In the end I didn't need to, because Baker himself was in the tent, jug of beer in hand, holding forth to an appreciative audience. I swapped a handful of leeks for a mug of mild, sat down on a bendy white plastic garden seat, and got an earful of the man himself.
He was tall but round, early fifties, dressed in 'Countryside Alliance' tweeds. His eyebrows were bushy, his cheeks were ruddy and his eyes were piercing blue. His jowls wobbled as he spoke.
"What you've got to understand, John," he said, "is that expansion is our only option."
Wow, ten seconds, job done. I can go home now, thanks. I never knew being a spy was this easy! At least I wouldn't have to drink any more of thi
s foul brew; one sip was more than enough.
"But that doesn't have to mean confrontation," he continued.
Really?
"I see Hildenborough as the centre of an alliance. Some kind of loose affiliation of trading partners. Tribes, villages, maybe even city states, who knows. But we've got a safe, secure position here. We've got all the food we can use thanks to our farming programme, we're well armed and crime is virtually zero."
Interesting.
"Virtually," laughed one of his fellow drinkers. "It'll be zero after you hang that bastard later on." The group of men shared a convivial chuckle. You'd have thought he'd just told a joke about golf or something. That confirmed what the main event was.
"True, true," said Baker. "Anyway, we have stability here and I believe we can export that. Help other communities organise and sort themselves out."
He took a long draught of ale.
"Obviously it won't be easy," he continued. "I dare say we'll have to knock a few heads together along the way, deal with a few thugs and nasties, line some of 'em up against a wall and put them out of our misery. But really, one doesn't have a choice, does one. Got to have rule of law otherwise it'll be back to the bad old days of muggers and rapists and, God help us, niggers with attitude."
Oh no, hang on, I was right to start with - just another racist law and order nut with a passion for execution. Not that I minded anyone stringing Mac up and watching him dangle. But I didn't particularly want to become a citizen of Daily Mailonia. I'd rather take my chances with Mac.
A little alarm bell at the back of my head said 'so who's choosing their strong leader now then? Who's putting faith in the hardest bastard around to protect them? Who's starting to think that maybe Mac is right?'
I ignored it.
I was just about to get up and leave when Baker said something that brought me up short. One of the others had asked something about local communities.
"The nearest thing to a community in the area is a school up the road," said Baker. "A proper school, mind; fee-paying, uniforms, teachers in gowns, army cadets, pupils from good families. There's a whole collection of boys there playing soldiers."
"So are you going to approach them? Bring them into your alliance?" asked another.
"Hard to say. We've been keeping them under surveillance for a while now..." Shit! "...and there have been some pretty unpleasant goings on there recently. About six weeks ago they actually crucified one of their teachers."
Various exclamations of disbelief.
"No, really. And they're very heavily armed. They raided the armoury of a Territorial Army HQ, so they've got machine guns and grenades. They've not threatened us at all but I have a suspicion that they may be behind my niece's disappearance. She left in pursuit of three looters a few months ago, and two of them were boys, so..."
As he momentarily lost the thread of his conversation in a choke of emotion I had a familiar sinking sensation. Here was the biggest player in the area and Mac had only gone and shot his bloody niece. A confrontation would be inevitable if this ever came to light.
"Anyway," he continued, "I've been considering our first move and I think we have to let them know who's boss. After all, they're only boys, they should fall into line if they're shown a firm enough hand. No need for a shooting war. I think a strong demonstration of authority should sort them out."
This was all starting to sound familiar. Mac's idea of a strong display of authority involved crucifixion. I imagined Baker's would involve some poor sod swinging at the end of a noose. Anxious that it shouldn't be me, I lustily knocked back the remains of my pint, forced myself not to gag, and rose to leave. But as I made for the exit Baker stepped into my path and said:
"My dear Lee, where do you think you're going?"
"I apologise, Lee - it is Lee isn't it?"
I nodded.
"I apologise, Lee, for misleading you back there. I am well aware that your glorious commander-in-chief executed my niece."
Baker was sat at a huge desk in what I took to be his office. I could see the business of market day proceeding normally through the huge arched window behind him. A tall woman had just taken the lead in the egg and spoon race.
I was tied to a chair, facing Baker across the desk and wondering how I'd ended up here.
"My source passed on that tidbit of information a few weeks ago," he said.
"Your source?"
"Steven Williams. I believe he helps run your little farm. He's out there now, trading vegetables. Nice young man. He thought rather highly of Mr Bates and didn't take his death well. He came to us one market day and asked for sanctuary, but we were able to persuade him to return to the school and draw us a few maps, detail your defences, provide us with profiles of the key players, that kind of thing. He's been most helpful."
I took a moment to digest this. Williams had betrayed us. I didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, I couldn't really blame him; but on the other he'd thrown in his lot with a bunch of tweed-clad fascists who probably thought The Cull was all the fault of immigrants.
"He told us about you, too, Lee. The loyal second-in-command, wounded in action, accessory to at least three murders that we know about."
There was no point explaining that I was planning to betray Mac too. I was going to have to stay in character; play the part I'd created for myself and hope I could find a way out of this.
How ironic if I ended up hanging for Mac's crimes before I had a chance to hang Mac for them myself.
"You killed two boys who were just scavenging for food. Don't you dare talk to me about murder," I spat.
Baker rose from his seat, walked around the desk and backhanded me hard across the face. A large signet ring cut a groove across my cheek and I felt blood begin to trickle down it.
"Don't answer me back, boy," he growled, his façade of civility momentarily stripped away. "I killed looters. Plain and simple. We need law and order, especially now. There can be no exceptions to the rule of law, not for sex or age. Wrongdoing must be punished. Justice must be seen to be done and it must be swift and merciless."
I lifted my head and stared at him.
"What about the right to a fair trial? What about mitigating circumstances?"
"A fair trial? Like the one you gave your teacher before you killed him? Don't be naive."
Dammit, why did all the nutters I found myself talking to always have to keep making such fair bloody points? Anyway we'd killed his niece. There was nothing at all that I could say that would change that. There was no talking myself out of this.
"Okay, I'm your hostage, you've got a plan to take the school and you're probably going to kill me. So let's get it over with. Why don't you tell me what you've got up your sleeve and then I can escape and foil your evil scheme. What do you say?"
Even as I said the words I cringed inwardly; I've seen too many bad movies. Perhaps it was because this was a scenario I'd seen played out so many times that I couldn't quite bring myself to feel I was really in jeopardy. The hero always ends up talking to somebody who's about to kill them, and they always manage a last-minute escape. It's a rule.
"My dear boy," replied Baker, his façade back in place. "I won't have time to explain my plans. Sorry."
Baker was working from the script of a different film.
"Why? Got an appointment to keep?"
"No. But you do."
Only a few months ago I had found it hard to conjure up any real concern when faced with imminent death. Reeling from the carnage of The Cull, emotionally shut down after burying my mother, I was barely interested in my own survival. Now, after being savaged and shot, I was keenly aware of how easy it was to die, and more determined than ever not to do so until I was old, feeble and surrounded by fat grandchildren.
But as I was marched up to the gallows I couldn't see any way to stay alive beyond the next five minutes. My nerve was only barely holding. By the time the rope was slipped around my neck I felt like shitting myself and I wan
ted to cry.
I stood on the raised wooden platform looking down at the assembled faces of the Hildenborough market crowd, eagerly awaiting the 'Main Event' - my death. Some looked excited, others looked bored. They munched on hot dogs or sipped their beers as if it were just another day. Williams avoided my gaze.
I tried to work out how a simple trip to market and a little light gossip had led so quickly and inescapably to my imminent death. This hadn't been the plan. I wasn't supposed to die here, not now. What about Mac? What about Matron? What about my dad? This was supposed to be an ordinary day, nothing too risky, nothing spectacular. This wasn't supposed to be the second date on my tombstone.
It seemed that death had caught me unawares.
Which, of course, is what it always does.
Baker stood beside me and addressed the throng as I tried to prevent my knees from buckling. The rope itched and scratched at the soft flesh of my neck.
"Citizens of Hildenborough, and honoured guests, today marks a new beginning for this town."
There was a smattering of enthusiastic applause and a few cheers.
"Ever since The Cull descended upon us I have striven to make this town safe - safe for mothers and children; for families and old people. In this town I have made it my business to preserve the values and ideals that made this country great. And I believe I have done so, with your help. Hildenborough is a haven, a sanctuary in a violent and depraved world. But no longer. Today we shall begin to take the message to the country. Today we shall start the process of civilisation anew. From this town, from this very spot upon which I stand, we shall spread peace and safety throughout the land and we, I, shall be its saviour.
"And that process begins with an enclave of violence and sickness that sits on our front doorstep. Yes, friends, in a small village not far from here is the school of St Mark's. I know that some of you had children that attended that school, and you remember it as a centre of excellence, fostering values like duty, respect, obedience and independence.
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