by Glynn James
The sound of the vehicle grew louder, and moments later a bus slowed down and pulled over on the side of the road. It was a battered old mini bus that may have originally carried twenty or so people through a local city bus route, but now it was rusted, the windows were all covered in metal grating, and the front of the bus was reinforced with metal plating that had to have come from other vehicles.
The driver's door opened and someone stepped out. I say someone. They were human, living I would say, and covered from head to foot in brown and green clothing wrapped around every part of their body. Their face was covered by a scarf that was the colour of the desert sand.
There was movement inside the bus. There was more than one of them.
"Wait," said the man in a deep rough voice. He was staring at the front door and began to raise a crossbow that I hadn't seen concealed inside all the clothing.
"We don't want any trouble now," said Reg.
The man span round and aimed the crossbow in Reg's direction. Peering, trying to spot the speaker.
"Dad?" said a voice from inside the bus, young, female, probably a young child.
"Stay quiet," said the man. "Stay down."
A gasp of air from the bus.
I slowly stood up, aiming both guns at the stranger. Reg copied me, moving slowly. I could almost see the fear in the man's eyes at realising that there were more of us.
"We are just passing, we don't mean any harm," I said. "You lower the crossbow and we'll lower the guns."
"What do you want from us?" he asked.
"We were looking for somewhere to stay the night, also hoping for friendly faces, but if you don't want us here, we'll keep moving."
"You look like Resistance folk," he said, peering at my armour.
"We are," said Reg.
The man lowered his crossbow and Reg and I lowered our guns, as promised.
"Then we don't have a problem at all do we?" said the man, pulling off his scarf and smiling.
"Roberts is the name, Cory Roberts. This is Cheserton road stop. Resistance folks are welcome here. I've had you folks up here quite a few times and never had any trouble."
The he spotted DogThing on the other side of the road and began to raise his crossbow again.
"No!" I shouted, "He's friendly. They all are."
"All?"
"There are a few hundred of them in the woods at the moment, a whole pack, but they're with us and they won't harm anyone. If anything they'll keep this place damn secure whilst they're here."
"They Maw?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Okay. I'm not used to them being around. I've seen a few out in the desert a few times, killing off shamblers, but not seen one up close. You fellas fancy giving me a hand offloading all my stuff?"
Half an hour later and we were all sitting down eating stew. I didn't know what was in it and didn't ask, but it tasted fantastic and filled a gap that was so empty that I'd forgotten what it was like to have a full stomach. Cory's daughter, Shelly, was older than I had expected, at least in her teens. I was surprised how welcoming they were.
"So where are you all headed to then?" Cory asked us."
"Up into the forest," I said, glancing over at Reg, who was sitting stuffing his face. He nodded.
"We're looking for the Sisters of Rahl," I said. "I don't suppose you've heard of them or happen to know where we can find them?"
Cory stopped eating.
"Oh I've heard of them alright, and that's a dangerous place that you're headed to. I don't know exactly where they are, but if you head up into the hills following the road you'll eventually come to a crossroads. Take a left and follow that and you'll find the ruins of Landshaw. They live in that city somewhere. I never go up that far myself, heard too many tales of people disappearing up there. You know those Sisters don't have a good reputation for being friendly to visitors."
"It's only hearsay, dad," said Shelly. She looked over at me. "Not many people have made contact with them after they hid themselves away years ago. They used to go around all the towns, recruiting new members for their monastery and they used to take supplies to the towns and trade. I remember seeing them when I was very little. But they just went recluse all of a sudden and all contact stopped.
"I've heard enough stories to believe that some of it has to be true," said Cory.
Shelly smiled. "You'll have to excuse my dad, he doesn't trust many people. Well, apart from Resistance folks anyway."
"Resistance saved the town I was born in a long time ago, and brought us all here. They earned my trust by saving a lot of folk's lives. You were too young to even remember."
"Have many people travelled up to find them? I mean people coming through here," asked Adler. Cory frowned at him. Both he and Shelly seemed to find Rudy and Adler a little disturbing.
"A few over the years, and I never saw any of them come back again," said Cory.
"That's because not many people come by here twice unless they're traders," said Shelly, shaking her head.
I smiled.
"You don't get many visitors here then?" I asked.
"Not so many as we used to," said Cory. "At one time this road was busy, and we'd have folks come through here almost every week. You know, travellers moving to new places, traders shifting their salvage around. Last few years the road got quite. Must admit it suits us fine though. Less trouble."
"Trouble?"
"Occasionally we'd get a bunch of folks who were up to no good pass through. They soon learned that me and Shelly can look after ourselves good enough."
Day 47
I woke up late, with the sun already blazing high in the sky. For the first time in ages I'd had an amazing night's sleep, in a real bed. Well, in a bunk, and Reg snored the whole night on the top bunk. It didn't matter.
No one was up yet, so instead of disturbing anyone, I went outside and walked around the back of the buildings and then over to the fence on the edge of the trees. From there I could see almost to forever across the open desert plain. Everywhere amongst the trees outside of the fence I could see the Maw. I imagined that if Cory or Shelly had come out here and seen them it would have been quite unnerving for them.
It's strange how you get used to something so quickly.
"Good morning," said a voice nearby. I looked round to see Rudy approaching from the tree line. That was something I still wasn't used to. It didn't matter that he was walking on the ground that was covered in dry twigs and leaves. He still made no sound.
"It is," I said, "A very good one, for a change. Is Adler around?"
He smiled. "Oh, he is about here somewhere, seems to be intent on studying the local wildlife and plant life. Always the obsessive. Look, is anyone else up?"
I frowned. He looked concerned, or serious. I wasn't sure which, but I suspected I was about to find out.
"No. All still asleep, I think."
His tone became hushed.
"We found something last night. Whilst you were all asleep."
"What?"
"Underneath the station."
My nerves tingled.
"It's nothing bad. Don't worry. But we're pretty sure that it's something that they don't want us to know about. I knew that Cory wasn't happy about me and Adler. He was wary. And we both suspected that there was a reason. Well, we were right. When they all went to sleep, we had a little look around."
He looked around as though he was expecting to be found out at any moment.
"Rudy. Stop messing. What's under the station?"
"People," he said.
Now I was nervous and my mind immediately jumped to Reg, asleep in there on his own.
"People? Who? How many?"
"Eleven. We counted them. Nine children and two women," he whispered, "they were all asleep when we went down there. There is a hatch under the stairwell that leads down into what looks like some kind of shelter. They've got everything down there. Electricity, lighting, food stores."
"But why would they be
under there? Do they have them locked in?"
"No. It's locked. We checked, but the lock is on the inside. The people down there must have locked it."
My mind was racing.
"That explains the open door."
"What?"
"The open door. When we got here the front door was wide open. When Cory arrived, when he and Shelly pulled up in the bus. He was looking at the front door."
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh. They saw us coming maybe? Look. Go and get Adler. I'll speak to Reg."
A couple of minutes later, and I was sitting on the chair opposite our bunks as Reg rushed to put his clothes on.
"Let me get this straight," he said. "You're telling me that there are a whole lot of people hiding away underneath us? Like they're entire family maybe?"
"Could be. Rudy says that it's locked up, but from inside. So they can't be prisoners. Whoever is down there locked themselves away before we got here."
"They must have seen us coming."
"Yes. They must have seen us and dashed for the bolt hole."
"Can we be sure of that, though?" asked Reg. "Is Rudy absolutely sure that the lock is on the underside?"
"He seemed sure of it. He said that they looked."
"So what do we do now? Go on pretending that we don't know? "
"I don't know."
"We can't leave them down there if they are locked up. We have to do something."
"Yes. You're right."
We were sitting with them over breakfast when I just came out with it. I'd stewed over how to approach them about it for about an hour and in the end decided that the best way was to just ask.
"Who are the people underneath the house?"
It was a very hard question to ask. They'd welcomed us in, fed us, and everything was cheerful up until that moment.
Silence. Everyone stopped eating. Shelly looked nervously at her father, who in turn just looked directly at me.
"What people?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"No point in trying to hide it, Cory. Eleven of them. Two women. The rest are children. Do you have them locked away or are they hiding from us?"
He took a deep breath and looked over at Shelly.
"Sweetheart. Go tell your mother that they don't need to hide anymore."
Shelly got up and left the room, heading for the stairs. Cory looked back at me.
"They would have hidden when you arrived. They're my family. Well, mine and my friend Jacob's. He and his sons are out on a trade run at the moment."
"We can leave if it makes you nervous," I said, looking at Reg, who nodded back.
"No," said Cory. "No need to leave. I didn't trust you when you first arrived, but now I can see that you're all decent folk who don't mean any harm."
Something occurred to me.
"That's why the door was open when we arrived, wasn't it? They were in a hurry and forgot to shut it."
"I would say so, yes," answered Cory. "Sentry would have alerted them before you were close."
"Sentry?"
"Oh. You're not the only ones who have helpers around," he said looking over at Adler and Rudy.
"There is someone like us here?" asked Rudy, looking surprised.
"No. He's not like you fellas at all. I'm sorry. He won't show himself to strange folks, especially with them Maw all over the place. He watches over the place, mostly watches over the children. Arrived a few months ago. Just turned up and started loitering around. Made everybody very nervous at the time. But then one day one of the kids nearly got attacked. It was little Ella, the youngest here. She's not one of mine or Jacob's. We kind of adopted her when her folks passed on. Anyhow, she was out near the back fence, just playing around, and half a dozen kre'esh came bounding through the trees. They would have been on her before anyone even had the chance to do anything, but no one had to. Our loiterer killed all of them before they could get anywhere near the child. It was the most surreal thing I'd ever seen in my life, and I've seen some strange things. I heard all the noise, and ran around the back as fast as I could, to find little Ella sitting on the ground, still playing with her toy car in the dirt. All over the place were the torn apart bodies of the kre'esh. She was still singing to herself, and our new visitor was standing perfectly still just a few feet away, watching her."
"Fascinating," said Adler.
"He never talks. Never interacts with anyone. Just stands watching out over the desert and kills anything that comes near that he deems a danger. Sometimes he will go to the children and point into the house. That means get yourself away, quickly. I don't know much about him, only that you can't see him very clearly, like a shadow, and that I'm more grateful to him than almost any other living thing I ever met. He's like some kind of guardian. If you ask Ella about it, she just says the angel is her friend."
"So we're actually quite lucky that he hasn't taken offence to us," I said.
"Very much so. I'm not sure how you found out about them being under there, but I'm very surprised that whoever looked didn't get themselves killed."
Rudy stood up from the chair he was sitting on.
"It was me that spotted them. I saw a light coming from a gap near the stairs and was just curious."
He looked over at Adler.
"I said to you at the time that I thought we were being watched."
"So you did," Adler agreed. "I'd forgotten. I never felt the presence you were speaking of. I thought you were being paranoid. It seems, my good friend, that your instincts once more prove me wrong."
We were planning to leave early, but once we were all outside, with the children running around and playing, any sense of urgency to leave just vanished. I could see by my friend's expressions that they were just as thrilled to see life once more. At one point, later on in the day, when I was standing out by the back fence, just watching over the desert, I heard some quiet footprints behind me. I turned to see one of the children, Ella, the youngest one, standing smiling at me.
"Hello little one," I said.
"I'm not that little. My angel says I'm specially made to be small, and that small is the bestest."
"Does he now?"
"That's what I said, didn't I?" she said, frowning at me.
I laughed.
"Yes, you did."
She climbed up onto a box next to the fence and peeped over.
"My angel likes your doggies. He says they are going to be his friends now."
I frowned this time.
"Oh? Really? I'm glad he likes them. I kind of like them too."
"You've got too many of them though," she said.
"Yes, I do seem to have picked up a few more than I expected."
She beamed a smile at me that was dazzling and infectious. I couldn't help but grin back at her.
"It's okay, though. Some of them are going to stay with me and my angel. They like it here."
"Um...okay. How do you know that?"
She looked back out towards where some of the Maw were sleeping in the shade of the trees.
"They told me so. My angel told them they should stay here and look after me and the other children, and that we can help them look after all their children too. So they said yes. I like the big one with the big bright fluffy bit on her head. She's funny."
"Yes, I like her too. She's been with me for quite a while.
"Her name is Mo," she said.
"Yes. It is. I gave her that name."
I felt a tingle run down my spine. I gave Mo her name only in my head, weeks ago, when we were in The Corridor, and I've never told anyone.
"That's okay. I won't tell anyone if it's a secret."
Then Ella went off to play with the other children out the front of the house, leaving me both puzzled and not just a tiny bit unnerved.
Day 48
We rose early the next morning whilst it was still dawn. The plan was to leave as soon as the sun came up. We packed up some new supplies that Cory had given us and said our goodbyes, makin
g more than one promise to come back this way soon. I tried giving Cory something in return for their hospitality, but he wouldn't have any of it. Not that I had a lot to give.
Just as we started off up the road, Ella ran after us and handed me something small wrapped in a grey cloth.
"Promise don't open it til you are a long, long way. It's a surprise and secret."
"I promise, and thank you."
She ran back to the station and stood next to Cory. As we headed up the road I looked back more than once. She was still there, even though everyone else had either gone back in the house or in the children's case, probably off to play. I could still see her watching us when we were nearly a mile away, just as we turned a bend and the trees obscured the building.
I stopped pulling the trolley along, and reached into my pocket, taking out the small cloth that she had given me. Rudy, Adler and Reg were walking ahead of me. Only DogThing stopped and peered back.
I opened the cloth and looked at what was inside. Just a single folded up piece of paper and a tiny flower. A white flower, and the kind of which I knew only too well.
I unfolded the tiny piece of paper. Until I could see what was written on it. It was just a few words, not much, but I felt my heart jump at reading them.
I wil be redy wen tis time for me to go wif yoo ganda. Eleanor
That was it. Nothing more, but it was enough to scare the crap out of me. First she could read my thoughts, and then that. I folded the paper back up with the flower and put it away into a pocket that I could button up. Tried to take my mind off of it and think of something else, but it was almost impossible. As we had left I noticed how a few of the Maw had just stood and watched us from the trees. She had been right. They were staying.
Throughout the day we made our way at what felt like a snail's pace, gradually uphill as the road wound its way through the trees. Along the way we passed run-down buildings that may once have been houses or farms. The buildings were mostly collapsed and crumbling ruins. One of the houses, right up next to the road, still had some clothes on a line that was stretching from inside one of the windows to a pole near the side of the road. The clothes, that must once have been white, were now a muddy grey colour and were barely clinging on. I wondered how long they had been hanging there.
