Finn pushes the chair away from the table as she stands, the legs scrape across the tiled floor.
“It’s his fault!” she says breathless. “His fault I’ve lost everything.”
Cassie looks on with horror at the pain in Finn’s face as she continues to talk.
“My little brother,” she says unable to suppress a sob. “He died in my arms. He died screaming in agony,” she cries, “and it’s his,” she jabs at the ceiling, “fault!”
“Shh! Finn, please, keep the noise down. The kids are still asleep. They don’t need to know this,” Cassie begs. “I’m sorry, so sorry,” she continues unable to keep the emotion down. Tears well in her eyes.
“You mean … it’s Dan’s fault my mother is dead? That they’re all dead?” Lina adds
“Yes,” Kyle replies before Cassie has a chance to defend him again.
“I just want us to start again,” Cassie says quietly. “It wasn’t Dan’s fault,” she repeats. “When we get to the farm …”
“We’re staying here,” Finn says decidedly.
“What? No!” Cassie says. “You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s our home,” Kyle replies.
“I’m sorry, Cassie. I think you’re great and everything, but I’m not going anywhere with Dan Morgan.”
The stairs creak and Cassie looks through the open door and into the hallway and catches a glimpse of Dan’s boot as he steps back up the stairs. Her heart sinks.
“You don’t know what my Dan has suffered these past weeks. It wasn’t his fault. When he found out what had happened he wanted … he wanted to kill himself.”
“Shame he didn’t!” Kyle blurts, his voice callous.
“How can you say that?” Cassie says, her voice low and pained.
“Rick! Tell them it’s not his fault, please,” she begs.
“Cassie,” he replies placing a gentle hand on her good shoulder. “I can’t tell them that. It would be a lie. I’m sorry. Listen,” he says turning to the others in the kitchen, “if you don’t want to come with us to the farm that’s OK, you can stay here. It’s not what me or Cassie want—we want you all to be safe—we’ve promised ourselves that we’d look after you—haven’t we, Cas,” he says giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
She nods and whispers, “Yes.”
“We’re stopping here,” Finn says with confidence although a pained frown pulls her brows together as she meets Cassie’s gaze.
“Me too,” Lina adds.
“No! Oh, Lina, no!” Cassie exclaims turning to the young girl. “You’re too young to be left here.”
“I want to stay with Finn and Kyle,” she says stubbornly. “I’m sorry, Cassie, but I just can’t stomach living with the man that killed my family.”
Cassie lets out a low moan and covers her face with her good hand. The pain of her shoulder nothing compared to the pain flooding her body right now.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” she repeats wiping away her tears with her sleeve. “Excuse me,” she says pushing her chair back, her voice trembling. “I’ll get the others up and we’ll pack our things. Rick,” she says through her tears. “Can we leave—soon?”
“Yes,” he replies with gentleness. “We can leave as soon as you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” she rasps, barely able to speak as she rushes out of the door and up the stairs to Dan. She needs the comfort of his arms about her, needs to tell him again it’s not his fault.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Dan!” she calls as she pushes the door open. He turns to her from the bottom of the bed, shoving his belongings into his rucksack, and catches her gaze. She recognises the hollowness in his eyes—the same hollowness that had been there that day on the balcony. “Dan,” she says again as she wraps her arms around him. He’s resistant to her touch and tenses his body as she holds him.
“I’m leaving,” he states as she clings to him and pulls at the zip of the rucksack.
“What?” she asks. “Yes, I know,” she continues before he can explain, “we’re all leaving—as soon as we’re ready, we’re going up to the farm. Rick said it’s not far now.”
“You know what I mean, Cassie. I’m going—just me—on my own.”
“Dan! No. You can’t go on your own.”
“It’s better that way. You’ll be better off without me—everyone will.”
“No, Dan. That’s not true. I need you. You can’t leave me on my own. You just can’t.”
“You’ve got Rick,” he says with a stab of spite.
“What? No, I’ve not got Rick. You’re my husband, Dan.”
“I’ve made up my mind, Cassie,” he replies, prizing her arm from his body.
“Aagh!” she moans as he pushes against her shoulder.
“See! I’m only ever going to hurt you—hurt everyone. I’m a monster, Cassie,” he says, self-loathing wrought across his face and grabs his jacket from the bed.
“Of course you’re not a monster,” Cassie placates as he thrusts his arms into the jacket’s sleeves. “Please don’t leave.”
“Dan?” Harry calls as he sits up in his makeshift bed.
Dan ignores him and grabs his rucksack. “I have to go,” he hisses quietly to Cassie. “Now.”
“Dan! Where are you going?” Harry asks as he rubs at his eyes.
“Just out, bud,” Dan returns. “You take care of Cassie for me, OK?”
“Yeah, sure, but whe-”
“Just out,” he repeats and strides to the open door.
Cassie watches as he leaves, watches as he steps out of sight, and listens as he runs down the stairs. The front door opens then closes and he’s gone.
“Has Dan left us, Cassie?” Harry asks as chairs scrape in the kitchen and raised voices can be heard in the hallway.
“Yes, Harry. I think he has.”
“Will he be coming back?”
“I hope so,” she returns and sits down on the bed, the pain in her shoulder spreading through and mixing with the agony in her heart.
***
Deacon pulls on the throttle of his bike and kicks it into a higher gear. The powerful engine growls and the bike surges forward. The cold of the morning air bites at his face, catching at his bare cheeks. He flips the visor of his helmet down, pulls again on the throttle and feels the pressure of Kit leaning into him. He’d forgotten for a second that he was there! He winds back the throttle and slows the bike as he checks the rear-view mirror and smiles to himself. Even through the closed visor covering Kit’s face, he can see that the kid is loving it. He pulls back the throttle again and lets the bike fly along the empty country road and thrills at the freedom. No traffic, no idiots to cut him up or sideswipe him.
A low mist hangs over the fields of uncut wheat and barley, a mist that will burn off as the sun gains strength during the morning. Even though the morning has an edge to it, the cold seeping through Deacon’s leathers, he can tell it’s going to be hot. In the distance, a tractor sits in a field, nose pointing down the gentle slope. Half-hidden in the uncut wheat it appears to be going about its work, a wide, cropped track in its wake. For a fleeting moment, Deacon imagines the farmer sat in his vehicle, keeping the steering wheel straight as he trundles up and down the field gathering in the wheat. Stupid! Of course it’s not moving. He checks the field again as he reaches its boundaries. The tractor is stock-still, its movement just an illusion. The farmer, Deacon imagines, must have died on the job. He clenches his jaw at the thought of another victim of Dan Morgan’s greed and turns again to the road ahead.
He follows the road until he comes to a large roundabout and slows to a stop. “Which way, Kit?” he asks. “It’s your choice.” The boy lifts his visor as he reads the large sign at the side of the road.
“Hmm. Left,” he replies. “Take the first exit.”
“Barton it is then,” he replies. “Never heard of it before.”
“Perhaps we’ll find food there?”
“There should be p
lenty, unless it all got looted.”
“Hmm … we can check in the houses.”
“Sure,” Deacon replies as he pulls his visor down with a grimace. The thought of searching through houses for dead people’s food is unsettling, and worse, they could still be there. His stomach clenches at the thought.
Five minutes later they’re through the thick woodlands and pass the town’s boundary. Either side, the street is lined with larger houses and gleaming cars parked next to neatly manicured lawns. Baskets hang bright with reds and fuchsia pinks next to canopied doors, the blooms show no sign of wilt despite their neglect of the past weeks. To Deacon it feels like the sunny Sunday mornings of his childhood when the shops stayed closed for the entire day. In those days too, the roads would be clear of traffic, cars parked up in the driveways or on the road, curtains closed as the working men and their women took their precious morning lay-in, or got laid. The only things missing are the snot-nosed, knee-scraped, and summer-tanned kids playing out on their bikes. As he reaches the bottom of the hill, he takes the first exit at the mini roundabout and can’t help but check for traffic coming from the right. The usual threat of cars and lorries are absent, but a man walks up the road. Deacon pulls the throttle and moves forward then pulls on the brake and checks again. Yes, a man, his head hanging low, kitted out for a trek with his thumbs secure through what must be a rucksack, is walking up the road.
Deacon pulls the bike to a stop and stares through his rear-view mirror. Should he go to him? They’re both survivors after all. He turns the wheel of his bike to a sharp right and begins to roll it back round. No! Him and Kit, they didn’t need anyone else. The man looks hang-dog and wretched, on his way out of town, no better off than them, perhaps worse. At least they had each other. He turns the wheel back round, twists the throttle and moves off down the road. He checks the rear-view just as the loner turns the corner and disappears from view. He looked defeated, ‘done in’ Jules would have said. He smiles at her memory and accepts the deep and biting pain that it brings. Following the road through the town until he reaches the banks of the huge river that runs by its side, he finally comes to a stop in a parking bay.
“This is nice,” says Kit as he dismounts and follows Deacon up the short flight of concrete steps to the top of the small man-made hill that snakes along with the river, the town’s only protection from its overspill.
“I recognise this place now,” Deacon replies. “That bridge,” he says pointing to the vast expanse of concrete slabs held by impossibly thin wires across the wide and muddy waters, “used to be the longest, single span, expansion bridge in the world. My dad worked on it in the 80s. He was a contractor—never home very much, but that wasn’t a bad thing.”
“It’s incredible.”
“Yep,” Deacon replies.
“Are we going to stop here then?” Kit asks as he looks around at the surrounding woodland and up and down the banks of the river. “There’s plenty of houses empty, and that,” he says pointing to a low building in the distance with a peaked roof that juts up above the others, “looks like a supermarket”.
“We should check the shop out but,” Deacon returns, “I don’t fancy having to pull out the bodies and live among the dead. The towns seem … contaminated.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. What should we do then?”
“Live in the woods. Build something new,” Deacon replies looking straight into the boy’s eyes.
He nods in return. “I’m OK with that,” he smiles. “Did you see that sign back there—for the nature reserve? There may be hides there.”
“Hides?”
“Yeah—they’re just sheds where bird watchers can sit and not be seen. They might be good to sleep in—at least for tonight?”
“OK. Let’s go,” Deacon agrees and looks across the tiled rooves of the town’s skyline. A movement catches his eye.
“Kit. Look again to the supermarket. Do you see anything?”
Kit turns, shields his eyes from the sun and peers at the expanse of tarmac and spread of low-slung buildings. “I think there are people!” he exclaims. “Do you think we should go down?”
“No,” Deacon returns. “Times have changed Kit. They may not make us very welcome.”
“Oh.”
“When we’ve been to the hides, we’ll take a reccy—figure out what’s going on in this town. It’s not as dead or as empty as it seems,” he replies. “C’mon, let’s go. We can make plans once we’ve found somewhere to sleep.”
Deacon looks again towards the supermarket carpark. It’s difficult to tell from this distance but there looks to be a small group of people hovering around the entrance. He scrutinises a tall, bulky blond and the squat, balding man at his side. Both are clutching something across their chests. This is—was—farming and gundog territory so he wouldn’t be surprised if they were armed, but whatever they were clinging onto doesn’t have the familiar outline of a rifle or shotgun. The muscular blond turns to a petite woman, a halo of blonde about her head, as she teeters to the entrance. The equipment in his arms glints in the light. Crossbows! He turns to the Kit, floppy chestnut hair hiding his profile as he rubs at the bugs splattered over his helmet, and concern overwhelms him. One thing was for sure, they’d have to keep a very low profile until he’d sussed out this place and got a measure of those people.
The helmet gleams in the sun and Kit holds it up for inspection. “See!” he says proudly, offering it to Deacon.
“I see,” Deacon smiles in return. “C’mon, let’s find one of them hides you know so much about.”
The story continues in The Outcast’s Journey, Book 3 in A World Torn Down series.
AUTHOR’S NOTES
If you’re reading this then I guess you’ve read through the entire story. I hope that you’ve enjoyed it and thank you for giving up your time to come along for the ride.
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I’ve always loved stories that pit man against the elements or overwhelming forces and wanted to write something exciting that would see ordinary, and perhaps quirky, characters in extraordinary situations. How we react to extreme situations fascinates me and it’s not always the obvious candidates that become the heroes of the hour. We’re complex beings. We have emotions, desires and needs. The quietest of men or women can become ruthless when threatened and, when the world turns upside down, we may survive by drawing on strengths we never knew we had. Those who have seemed stalwarts of morality and right can break and turn bad. The survivors aren’t always the good and the strong. What would you do to save yourself?
I’ve planned A World Torn Down in a serialised format to be published regularly. Once complete, I will be publishing the entire series in an omnibus edition.
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OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
Dark Powers Rising
If you enjoy darkly dystopian post-apocalyptic thrillers with danger and suspense and well-developed characters then you’ll love Dark Powers Rising.
THE SAVAGE ROAD
A WORLD TORN DOWN SERIES
BOOK 2
By
Rebecca Fernfield
Ebook first published in 2017 by REDBEGGA LIMITED
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All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is pu
rely coincidental.
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The Savage Road: A post-apocalyptic survival series (A World Torn Down Book 2) Page 12
