After It Happened (Book 3): Society

by Devon C. Ford

  There was so much to take in that she said nothing for now. Simply raised herself on her tiptoes and kissed him gently. She handed him the shotgun like it was making her hands dirty and told him to come back safe.

  He turned away and tossed the shotgun to Rich before getting back behind the wheel and driving up the road only to stop by the driveway entrance where Joe was dragging a body from the trees.

  He stopped and looked at the man. He was filthy with long hair and a matted beard. He stank. He looked such a mess that Joe had to point out that it was Kyle. Dan stared in silence for a while at the emaciated body of the man who tried to kill him once.

  “Well done, Joe” he said “Take him down to the others? We’ll be back soon”

  They reached the gardens and Dan asked where the prisoner was. He was not doing well, but he didn't have to last long for what Dan wanted.

  "Oi, fuckface. Remember me?" He said as he slapped him back into consciousness, looking at the butcher’s mess of his arm and noticing that two fingers were badly dislocated and splayed out at grotesque angles.

  If Leah was affected by the sight of a badly wounded man being mistreated, she showed no sign of it. Dan doubted if she knew about either the Geneva Convention or the Human Rights Act.

  Pain racked his face, as the consciousness brought back the feeling of the mangled flesh that used to be his forearm.

  "Of course you do. Now, I've got a job for you. If you do it properly I'll get you medical care. If you don't I'll feed you to my dog"

  He snapped his fingers in front of his face as he was drifting away again. He nodded. Dan liked to keep the rules simple.

  He had his hands tied together at the front and bandaging around the jagged wounds. Leah put her rifle in the front seat out of his reach and sat behind Dan as their prisoner was dumped in where he could see him in the mirror behind the passenger seat. Ash rode up front, watching.

  It was less than a minute before the desperate fool made his move.

  Instead of opening the door and rolling out for a bid for freedom, which would have resulted in Dan gently stopping and allowing Ash to exit via the window, he went for Leah's knife on her left shoulder. He was quick, turning and reaching out with his left hand, but as quick as the flurry of movement started it was ended.

  Dan looked back to see Leah's left boot pressing into his throat and holding him painfully against the window. She had drawn her Glock as fast as a striking snake and held it pointed at his face as she braced her shoulders against her door and arched her back to increase the pressure. He froze, experiencing yet more agony.

  She had it covered.

  "Nicely done, Nikita. I think our friend can travel the rest of the way like that" he said nonchalantly.

  "Roger" came the reply, in a funny voice copied from a film he couldn't remember.

  SIMPLE INVESTIGATION

  The bodies of the attackers had all been laid out on the drive by the smoking ruins of the convoy.

  Eight of them had been brought up by tractor from the rear attack and lay next to the ten from the three vehicles. Kyle was one of them, marked out as different by his filthy clothing and obvious malnutrition.

  Leah released her new best friend’s throat, recoiling like a mongoose as she slipped from the vehicle whilst keeping the foresight of her Glock firmly between his eyes.

  Dan dragged him out and marched him to the line of bodies.

  "Which one's Billy?" He demanded. The shade of pale purple he had turned during the journey was fading, and he had just about recovered sufficient breath to speak.

  "Him" he said, indicating a normal looking man with bullet holes either side of his skull.

  "That was me" Leah said aloud, trying not to sound too proud.

  Dan glanced casually from the ambush site to the tower she was perched on. Bloody good shot, he thought to himself as he fought the urge to offer a high-five.

  "Excellent answer.” He said with a false smile “You progress to round two; are these all of your friends apart from the two dead bastards we left where you pointed guns at innocent people?"

  He started to cry; a pathetic keening noise which cut through Dan’s brain painfully.

  They were. His entire gang. Billy's crew; all wiped out. He was sure. No matter how much this psychopath threatened him with his child assassin and his evil dog, no matter how much pain he was in, he was the only one left.

  "Ok. You can go" Dan said, looking around.

  He saw only Rangers, Jimmy and Neil, and knew that they were shielded from the house by trees.

  "Really?" He asked, the revelation stopping his tears instantly.

  "Yes. How far is your place? I'll drop you off" Dan said reasonably. Dumbstruck, the man’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he processed what he had just heard.

  "You know the athletics stadium? Just off the motorway?" He asked, naive and hopeful.

  "Yes" said Dan, drawing the suppressed Walther from his vest and putting one round behind his ear at point blank range.

  Nobody spoke as the man’s body slumped to the floor with his friends. His legs gave out just like someone had switched off the power supply. A few seconds of silence reigned as they all stared at the additional body on the ground.

  "Well, that was frightfully silly of the man" declared Neil in his favourite accent, breaking the silence "Who would pick a fight with a group of armed gentlemen and expect to get away?"

  They laughed at Neil's impression as they all accepted their agreed account of how the man died.

  "Silly chap. Still, couldn't be helped, eh? Who wants a cup of tea?"

  CLEAN UP

  The bodies were stripped of anything useful, as were the cars. It had been months since they had burned dead people in the tennis court, but they used petrol to light another fire as they had before. The difference being that they had made these people dead intentionally.

  Ewan spent the afternoon using the big forklift to drag the five cars to the track that provided access to the rear by the lake. They were dumped in tight formation to block it completely from the road.

  Joe offered to move to the gardens for a while until things settled down, taking his vehicle and extra weaponry.

  Everyone was brought in for the day to get to grips with what had just happened.

  Marie gave the facts to the assembled group. Now they numbered over seventy – Dan couldn’t keep up – she had to stand at the pulpit in the chapel, or diverse multiple faith room as the sign read, to be heard easily.

  She gave the brief facts, left out the gory details, and told everyone what was being done about it.

  "Some of you will remember Kyle, the others will have heard about him I'm sure" she said. "It seems that after he fled from here, a group of undesirable people found him and imprisoned him. He must have given them in depth details about our home which allowed them to attack us."

  Murmurs rippled around the crowd.

  "Their attack was repelled" she spoke loudly and confidently. "Their group is no longer a threat to us. Everyone who knew about this is dead" she let that sink in.

  "Thanks to the quick thinking and bravery of Cedric, Pete, James, Neil and our Rangers we are still whole." She looked at each person she named as she spoke. Rangers were expected to fight, she said, it’s what they chose to do. When farmers and gardeners and mechanics put their lives on the line, then that needs recognising to reassure them.

  The murmur picked up a notch.

  "Now, it's true. Pete has been shot in the attack as he and James defended us"

  The murmur dropped in happiness a level.

  "But expert medical care from Leah at the scene and then Kate, Lizzie and Alice has saved him. He is now resting in medical and needs time to heal, but I'm sure all of our thoughts are with him" again she looked at those as she named them, amazing Dan at how she knew where they were in the crowd.

  The murmur swayed from concerned, to proud and now returned to happy.

  "I know this has been diffi
cult and frightening, but until order is established on a wider scale then we must do as we have done to protect innocent people"

  She paused, orchestrating the mood of the crowd like a maestro.

  "We have all been through bad things since it happened, and more bad things may be in store yet, but today we have proven that we are stronger as a group than these people thought. That's why we're here and they're not" The excitement rose again as Marie went on with her effective propaganda.

  Dan didn't know how she managed the strings so well, but she actually got a cheer at the end of the speech.

  Dan wanted nothing more than to take the day off, to get back in bed with Marie. To have had breakfast instead of skipping straight to dinner.

  However, he had a dog covered in blood, a damaged marine in need of a serious check-up, a thirteen-year-old who has just killed three people and seemed to think nothing of it and a friend in the hospital with two big holes where Kate had pulled bullets out of him.

  He also had another friend who had killed someone with a shotgun as he aimed at Dan's own head – something that hadn’t even sunk into his own mind yet – over a dozen people frightened by being held hostage, a shortage of ammunition for the machine gun and an enemy lair to find and destroy.

  "Grant me the serenity" he said aloud to himself as he walked through the house. He decided to start with the things he could fix easily, that way his 'to do' list seemed to make progress.

  First stop; Pete. He found him happily propped up in a hospital bed with a large clean bandage over his shoulder and his arm in a sling. Kate showed him the small bullets she had removed, and told him that she has had to give Pete a little 'sauce' to aid his recovery. He understood, and asked for a quiet report on how much he's having to keep functioning.

  Pete accepted the thanks blithely, playing down the evident sacrifice he would have most likely made had James not done what he did and Rich not chosen to come to their rescue.

  Dan provided Kate with a bottle of scotch to help her keep Pete happy and save on the medication. He fetched Ash and headed for Ops, looking for Leah or Rich or both. He found both. All the weapons that had been used today were stripped fully and put back together oiled. The big machine gun had suffered a jam on the last burst, and Neil had been unable to clear it. The gun now lay in pieces; the delegate components laid out in OCD straight lines on a clean cloth.

  Leah and Rich sat at the table looking over the new weapons picked up from their attackers. They were arguing kind heartedly over which gun had injured Pete.

  Rich was adamant that it was the ancient and very illegal Uzi automatic pistol with filed-off serial numbers. That thing had probably changed hands numerous times over the last thirty years as it made its rounds through the criminal underworld, being held sideways and pointed out of car windows.

  "Right calibre, two wounds close together. High rate of fire. It was this" he said, resting his finger on the dull and uncared for weapon.

  "Ok, maybe you're right" Leah admitted.

  "You two gun geeks have any other hobbies?" He asked them.

  "No. Not really" Leah said, deadly serious.

  Dan sighed. He knew she would never have the end of her childhood as she deserved, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy it so much concerned him sometimes.

  "Fine. I've got a search and rescue mission for you instead. Solo. Can you do it?" He asked seriously.

  "Yes. Details?" She said jumping up.

  "Ops. Missing bottle of single malt. Not been seen for two days. Should be in company with a glass. Go"

  Leah knew when she'd been played, and walked off to fetch what she was sent for. Dan opened one of the large windows and sat on the floor with his head resting on the sill. He lit a cigarette and answered the dogs grumbling with "shut it, tobacco Nazi" Ash put his head down with a grumble and didn't press the issue.

  Leah returned with the bottle and glass, taking her leave before she was sent. Dan had already primed Marie to intercept her.

  "Do your teeth before bed" he called after her.

  "Yes, Dad" came the sarcastic reply.

  Some Dad, he thought.

  Both Leah and Rich knew what the shakedown was for, and she knew she would be sent away so Dan could do his ‘after action’ report. He poured himself a shot and suddenly realised how thoughtless he was being. He started to apologise to Rich who stopped him.

  "It's fine. I can choose to drink or not. Today isn't really a celebration day for me, so I won't be having one. But thanks"

  Dan raised his glass to him anyway and took a sip.

  "I wanted to ask you something" he started.

  "I'm fine. I went into a bit of autopilot and I was scared. Really scared actually" he said, fiddling with the extended magazine from the Uzi.

  "I was actually going to ask what made you leave the post you were given" Dan said quietly.

  Rich stopped fiddling and looked at him coldly.

  "That came out wrong" Dan said, backtracking "what I meant was, how did you know to reinforce the rear?"

  Rich calmed down immediately, having momentarily thought he had been accused of desertion by Dan not being careful with his words.

  "Two civvies out back, three trained out front. Judgement call" He said almost grudgingly.

  Dan took a sip of his drink "You did bloody well. You saved lives, possibly all of ours. I need you to understand that this isn't the military; there's no chain of command with orders to obey, not really. I don’t have the monopoly on good ideas and I appreciate having people around me who can think independently. What matters to me is that you get the job done. You saw a leak and you plugged it. Not only that, you dropped four people who looked like they hadn't even seen you"

  "They hadn't" Rich said, smiling wickedly out of the scarred corner of his mouth.

  Dan raised the glass to him again. "What about our resident child assassin? Did you hear what she did in the back of my truck?"

  He hadn't. Dan filled him in on the details. Rich laughed heartily as he imagined Leah going ‘full ninja’ as he put it.

  "I honestly don't know what to make of her sometimes” he said “She doesn't show any signs I'd recognise of anything being wrong. Maybe she's just adapted to it?"

  Dan took another drink, draining the glass.

  “Maybe” he said “I just sometimes wish she’d refuse to get out of bed or something. You know, be a normal teenager?”

  “You can’t expect her to be normal” explained Rich “We don’t live in a normal world anymore”

  “True” said Dan “Anyway, I’m officially bloody impressed with your work. Are you looking to get out and about?” he was offering him a shot at being a Ranger, and Rich surprised him.

  “Not yet, no” he said “I’ve honestly spent enough of my life creeping along waiting to get shot at. I’d like to stay as Quartermaster and look at the defences for this place if I can?”

  Dan was happy with that. “What about special occasions? Can we dust you off for the odd one?”

  He laughed “Dawn raid, guest starring me?”

  “Yeah” said Dan. Rich nodded his agreement, and offered him his congratulations on a successful day. Dan shook his maimed hand as he left.

  He looked for Leah and found her walking with Marie to her office, each carrying a hot chocolate from a large batch made up by Nina. Dan went back to Ops and poured himself another one as Ash whined nervously at Satan’s reincarnation. The cat had been dislodged from its normal perch as Rich had sorted out the ammunition properly so it now chose to lounge on a shelf with its legs hanging down. It avoided the shopping basket bed and preferred the height advantage from which to tease the dogs. Steve sat reading a book with his feet up by the window which looked along the drive. The CB set to his right was silent and the coffee to his left looked cold.

  He looked up from his book long enough to give a friendly nod. He liked that about Steve; he could do comfortable silences.

  He wandered out to find Cedric and than
k him for saving his life. He also planned to ask him if would kindly not mention to Marie how close he was to getting his head blown off.

  THE LAIR

  Dan did not entirely trust Ash’s friend that the whole group had come in force to take over their home. He planned to make sure.

  Leah and Rich were left as guard, and he took the three Rangers to work in pairs. They went in two vehicles; Dan in his Discovery with Joe and Ash and Steve behind in his Defender with Lexi.

  He knew the stadium, as it was the only one within a fifty-mile radius at least. The main reason they had never come across this group is that there were no real main roads that connected their areas and to find them would’ve made for an illogical and ponderous journey. If, say, you panicked and fled blindly across country for over ten miles, you could find the place eventually.

  As they approached they saw a supermarket on the opposite side of the road. That’s why they weren’t struggling for supplies or having to go out anywhere. Kyle dropping in must have been something of a surprise for them.

  Across the front of the supermarket were the painted words ‘CLAIMED: LOOTERS WILL BE KILLED’ Friendly people.

  They had stopped the cars short of the building and made the last half mile on foot, working in two pairs covering and moving in silence.

  They found the place abandoned, with evidence of where they had slept and a cache of bags ready to be collected after they had established themselves in their new home. It had been well planned, but by amateurs. They deserved their fate. They had made no attempt to plan for the future either through inability or a lack of imagination. Did they really expect to survive forever like this?

  Lexi emptied all the bags looking for anything useful and found nothing. They had put all their eggs in one basket, and had it knocked from their hands as they deserved.

  Dan cleared the upper level with Ash as the others did the same downstairs. Nobody home. Either there were others and they had fled after the rest didn’t come home, or Dan had extracted the truth before he shot the only survivor in the head. They returned to the vehicles and poured coffee, deciding what to do with the rest of the day. Steve laid out a road map on the bonnet of the Discovery as Dan wondered aloud of there were any groups of survivors left who weren’t arseholes.