by Perrin Briar
“Damn,” Jordan said.
“What?” Anne said.
“I was hoping the prison would be a tent too. Easier to break out of.”
They sat on the dusty dirt floor. Stan ran his fingers through it. “Bit of a come-down from our last place, isn’t it?” he said.
“Sorry guys,” Jordan said. “I should have been more careful. Now we’re going to be used as sex slaves.”
“It’s not your fault,” Stan said. “How could you know we’d run into a sex cult? It could be worse. They might have tried to execute us by morning. At least it’s only sex. I’m rather flattered they would want an old codger like me.”
Raindrops rapped the corrugated iron roof like they were made of stones. Grasshoppers chirped and somewhere an owl hooted. The rain pooled in at one end of the room. They all shifted a few inches in the opposite direction.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the sea lately,” Stan said. “You know what I miss the most? I miss being on water. I miss the feel of the deck moving beneath my feet, the wind through my hair… what little I have left of it, anyway. And there was that feeling when you woke up in the morning, and the sun was just peeking out above the waterline to usher in a new day, and the sea was so calm, so quiet, that you could almost be fooled into thinking all was right with the world. That’s what I miss.”
Jordan looked out at the marsh through the gap in a pair of tree trunks. “I miss not having to be afraid all the time. I miss knowing that when I went to sleep at night I didn’t have to worry if something would be gnawing on my ankle come morning. I miss feeling safe.”
“I miss fish.” Anne turned to look at the others who had incredulous expressions. “I know. I never thought I would say it either. We were onto a good thing for a while. But now it’s over. And we’re not likely to ever see it again.”
Footsteps crunched outside. Jordan peered through the gaps but caught sight only of a pair of jeans and heavy work boots.
“Who is it?” Anne said, sotto voce.
“I’m not sure,” Jordan said. “Maybe they’ve come to take us somewhere.”
“Lordy,” Stan said, unbuttoning his shirt. He turned to Anne. “How do I look?”
The wooden blocks over the door shifted and were laid on the ground with hardly a sound. A large silhouette passed in front of the door. It was big and powerful. Dust swirled around the doorframe, tinted by moonlight.
Jordan shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. He faced the door. He ushered the others behind him. He squared his shoulders and took up a fighting stance, his body tense.
“Jordan…” Anne said under her breath, hand touching his arm.
The door opened. The doorway was empty.
“Shhh,” a deep voice said.
Jordan didn’t relax, keeping his fists up. A shadow stepped into the doorway, head pointing up at such an angle so the moonlight spilled across his face.
“Roland?” Jordan said.
“Come with me,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”
124.
The camp was silent. Roland’s head swivelled left and right, taking in every detail. He led them through the maze-like camp, never hesitating. They walked tight along the tent line, steering clear of the main thoroughfare.
“Wait. What are you-?” a muffled voice said from a tent that looked like it had been lifted from an army base.
Roland froze. He put his finger to his lips. The voice inside the tent quietened down and began snoring. Just a man talking in his sleep.
As they passed another tent, muffled grunts and exclamations of, “Yes. Yes. More. More,” emanated from it.
Anne slowed and pulled on Jordan’s arm. “How do we know this isn’t some kind of trap?”
“Why would they go to all this trouble if it was?”
Anne looked at Roland’s back. “Do you think we can trust him?”
“Do we have a choice?”
As they approached the final row of tents that led onto the marshland, a tent’s flaps opened, and a twenty-year-old brunette, hair askew, came out. Roland froze, but it was too late, she’d seen him. The others stood behind the tent out of sight.
“Roland?” she said. “What are you doing up?”
“I… came to see if you’d finished.”
“With Ray? He always finishes quick.” She stepped toward him, toward the side of the tent where Jordan and the others would be visible. Roland met her halfway. She ran a hand through his beard. “Unlike others I know. You chose Emma. She wasn’t enough for you?”
“No one’s ever enough for me.” Roland ran his hands over the lumps in the fabric of her robe. “Except you.”
She shut her eyes and enjoyed his gentle but firm caress. She opened her eyes. “Your tent, ten minutes.”
“Your tent. Twenty minutes.”
She frowned.
“I like to keep a lady waiting. Makes her more… amenable.”
“With you I’m always amenable.” With a saucy smile cast over her shoulder she walked away.
Roland picked up the pace and jogged away from the camp. With no lights the town shrunk back into the darkness like a ship beneath the sea. Roland stood at the edge of the marshland. Jordan could smell it, even if he couldn’t see it. The flies had abated for the night. The frogs ceased croaking as they approached.
“We can’t cross the marsh at night!” Jordan said. “What about the Lurchers?”
“There are no Lurchers this side of the marsh,” Roland said. “At least, not a few hours ago. We are on the opposite side you entered from.”
“Are you sure you can lead us in the dark?”
“I know this marsh better than anyone. I will take you via the secret route.”
“So there is a secret path. Aren’t you worried I’ll return with a hundred Lurchers in tow?”
Roland smiled, the moonlight turning it into a grotesque mask. “Lindsay gives you more credit than you deserve. You’ll never remember the route at night.” He led them into the marsh.
Jordan followed Roland’s wide shoulders. The ground beneath his feet felt firm, and for a moment Jordan wondered if they weren’t really in the marsh after all, until he missed his footing and his whole boot sank into stagnant water. They doubled back on themselves three times, once even going in a circle, before the sight of trees drew up in the darkness and Roland came to a stop.
They were in a small clearing that gave onto a thick hedgerow. Something rustled in the foliage and scampered away.
“You should continue forward,” Roland said. “You will come to fertile farmland, then you must continue on for ten more miles and you will be at your beloved ocean.”
He turned to leave. Jordan caught the crook of his elbow.
“Wait. Thank you. For doing this.”
Roland sneered and pulled his arm free. “I didn’t do this for you. I did this for me. Lindsay is mine. She will never be yours.”
He turned and headed back into the marshland, his back disappearing within seconds.
“Lindsay was right about one thing,” Stan said as he turned to the hedgerow and walked through it. “It certainly has been an unforgettable evening.”
125.
The thin wood gave way to the flat rolling hills of farmland. Sunlight cast a golden glow over nature. Soon the sun was blazing and hot above them, a light sweat dotted their brows. They stopped for breakfast, consuming tinned fruit with their fingers.
Jordan pushed aside foliage. A field sprawled out before them. There was little cover save for a few haystacks dotting the area like acne. A shallow ditch ran up the left-hand side, and a thick hedge cast long shadows from the top. The wind howled across the empty expanse, emphasizing the silence.
“Should we go back?” Anne said.
“Go back where?” Jordan said. “Everywhere looks the same.”
“I don’t feel too good about this.”
“Neither do I, but what choice do we have? We have to keep moving.”
They
stepped out into the open with all the caution of a wild deer, eyes darting in every direction, noses raised in the air for the slightest hint of decaying flesh.
As they drew closer to the haystacks, they found they had been arranged in bizarre building-like structures – each haystack a building block.
“Did you see anything?” Jordan asked.
Anne leaned against the haystack house, needle-like straw stabbing into her back. “No.”
“All right. Let’s keep going till we get to the other end of the field. Anne, are you okay?”
She stood frozen, head cocked to one side. “I swear I just heard something.”
“ ‘Something’ what?”
“Voices.” She pointed to the haystack behind them. She put her ear close to it. “Hello? Is anyone in there?”
There was no reply.
“If someone’s in there, please tell us. We haven’t been bitten, and we’re of no danger to you.”
Again there was no reply.
Anne shrugged. “I guess I must have imagined it.”
A single haystack at the base of the building shivered and shook, and was pulled away, creating a hole. A small face looked up at them one at a time. He broke into a grin. “Fancy a cup of tea?”
126.
“I’m Kevin. This is Beth,” the funny little man said. They were both short, blonde and blue-eyed, with large ears and front molars.
“We’ve been staying in and around the fields and eating the fruit and vegetables we find and grow here,” Beth said.
“She always wanted me to be a vegetarian!” Kevin said.
The structure was broad at the base and narrow at the top, where light filtered in through a hole. There was plenty of space for all six people to sit on the blankets on the floor. Occasionally Jordan’s head brushed the roof, and was lightly showered by dust.
“You need to be careful on the roads,” Beth said. “There are brigands about. That’s what we thought you were at first, but then we saw her,” she nodded to Jessie. “There’s no way brigands would take care of her. They’d leave her to starve, or use her as a distraction for the Lurchers.” Beth shook her head. “Brigands. I only ever used to hear that word in Robin Hood stories.” She got to her feet. “You must be hungry. I’m afraid we only have vegetables. No meat.”
“That’s fine,” Anne said. “Can I help?”
“Sure.” Beth led Anne over to a small kitchen area with a long plastic table and a bowl of clean water. They began chopping the vegetables with well-worn, but sharp knives.
“So what did you eat out there on the sea?” Kevin asked.
“Cod. Haddock. Jellyfish,” Jordan said. “Anything we could catch, really.”
“Jellyfish?” Kevin scrunched up his face. “The other fish sound good though. What I wouldn’t give for fish and chips right now…”
“You say that now,” Stan said, “but try eating it every day for six months.”
“It’s the same with these vegetables. No matter what seasoning or sauces we manage to rustle up it always tastes the same. We found a dead pig once. I was so tempted to bring it here, but you can never be sure what it might attract.” Kevin glanced over at Beth, who was distracted by a chat she was having with Anne. He spoke in a low whisper. “Have you heard anything? We don’t hear much about the outside world.”
“No, not really,” Jordan said.
“Not really? So there is something…”
Jordan hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to worry you.”
“Dude. I’m living in a haystack. There’s not much that wouldn’t worry me now.”
Jordan glanced over at the women. “All right. It’s the Lurchers. They’re acting strange.”
“Rising from the dead. Biting people. When have they been any different?”
“Stranger than normal.”
“How?”
Jordan looked over again at the women. They couldn’t hear them, but he lowered his voice anyway. “They’re getting smarter.”
Kevin looked from Jordan to Stan, then back again. He frowned, the heavy crease marks in his forehead making him look even more like a mouse. “Is this what you’ve heard or what you’ve seen?”
“Both. But it’s not all the Lurchers. Most of them are still as dumb as a post. But a few… they’ve changed.”
“How smart are we talking?”
“At first they seemed to be the same dumb beasts we always took them for. They attacked at random, without thought or control. We were making our way back to our boat when they fell on us.”
“But they didn’t get you?”
“They did, but they didn’t bite us.”
Kevin shook his head, then looked at Stan, who said, “It’s true.”
Kevin paled. “Why wouldn’t they bite you?”
“They held us and waited for another Lurcher to come. Except he wasn’t like the other Lurchers. He was smart. The compound soldiers called him Queenie – because he’s like the queen of the Lurchers, a kind of hive mind, I guess. He grunted and they all listened. He came to me, cut open my arm with his nail,” Jordan showed him the cut that had healed, “and drank some of my blood. He… tasted it. He seemed to like it. He screeched something and the other Lurchers holding me took me away. I don’t know where they were taking me – I never got there. Apparently Queenie tried Anne’s blood but didn’t like it. There’s something about my blood he likes. We don’t know what. We managed to escape, not to our boat like we’d planned but further inland. Queenie has been chasing us ever since.”
“Chasing…” Kevin couldn’t believe it.
“They even set a trap for us. It almost worked. One of our number – Selena – was killed.”
Kevin paled with each word. He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “That is worrying.”
“What are you going to do?”
Kevin blew air out through his mouth. “Stay here, I guess. Beth’s happy here. I can’t force her to go somewhere she won’t be happy. Besides, she’s allergic to fish.”
127.
Beth handed them a packed lunch for their journey ahead. They made their goodbyes.
“Good luck out there,” Kevin said.
They crossed the field, waved once more to their hosts, and found the gap in the hedge Kevin had told them about. It led onto yet another field.
A south westerly wind blew cold, hard and strong from behind. It felt good when it dried the sweat on their backs. The land ran downhill making their travelling even easier. They crossed a country road that bisected their walking path. Jordan checked both directions out of habit and walked across it. He stopped in the middle and looked up and down the road that appeared and disappeared over undulating hills into the distance. The heat haze wobbled above it. The world was so quiet. They crossed the road and came to a worn dirt-track.
The grass and flowers had been pressed back as if someone had been through recently. There was a farmhouse up ahead with adjoining barn. Together the buildings made an ‘L’ shape, and sheltered between them were trees with branches bowed heavy with ripe fruit. Jordan reached up, plucked an apple and tossed it to Anne.
“Here, catch,” he said.
Jordan plucked another apple and bit into it. The juice ran down his chin.
SNAP.
Jordan spun round to identify the cause of the sharp metallic clack, akin to a large mousetrap going off.
Stan fell to his knees at Jessie’s feet, clawing at something attached to her foot. Jessie’s eyes were clenched shut with pain.
Most bizarre of all was Anne – frozen, the apple on the ground, a queer look on her face, looking at something behind Jordan. But before he could turn, something cold and hard pressed against his head. He recognised the thick circular tubes as that of a double-barrelled shotgun.
“You gonna pay for that?”
128.
The voice was hard and deep, with an obvious broad Norfolk twang. Jordan couldn’t turn his head far enough to get a good look at him. He held his hands up
in surrender.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Jordan said.
The man chuckled. “Then you’d best not have stolen me apples then had you?”
“You’re right. We’re sorry. We thought there was no one else here. All the farms in the area have been empty.”
The man cocked his head to one side. “Which direction did you come from?” ‘From’ was pronounced ‘frahm’.
Jordan nodded west.
“You come by old Tilly’s place?” the man asked.
“I don’t know who Tilly is.”
“Old farmhouse building with a red roof and white walls. ‘Bout a mile in the direction you came from.”
“Yes. We passed it.”
“And?”
“Empty.”
“Nobody?” The man’s voice seemed hollow now, and cracked with emotion.
Jordan began to turn.
The man pushed the gun harder into Jordan’s skull. “Did I tell you to turn round? You do, and it’ll be the last thing you do do.” There was a pause, and then, unexpectedly, the farmer cackled. “Do do,” he said. “Doo doo.” The shotgun barrel relaxed on Jordan’s head.
Jordan turned. The man was the quintessential farmer: thick of chest and short of leg. Everything he wore was earthy in colour – from his dusty brown flat-cap, to his soiled green wellington boots, muddy to the shin. He had to be in his fifties, but his body was hard and lean, used to labour. He lowered the gun, pointing it at the ground, and wiped the tears of laugher from his eyes. He extended a hard-skinned hand.
Jordan nodded to his hands still up in the air. “Can I put them down?”
“Unless you’ve got something else for me to shake. And between us, I don’t think we’re that well acquainted yet.”
Jordan shook the farmer’s hand.
“The name’s Frank,” the farmer said.
“I’m Jordan. This is Anne, Stan and Jessie.”
Upon seeing Anne and Jessie, Frank tapped his cap with his fingertips. He rested the gun in the crook of one arm. “You’ll never get it free that way,” Frank said to Stan, who continued to pull at the thing attached to Jessie’s leg. Frank put the gun down and knelt beside Jessie’s trapped foot. “Stop struggling. It’ll only get tighter the more you struggle.”
