On the Third Day

by Rhys Thomas

  The others around him agreed.

  ‘So what are you saying we should do?’

  The man shrugged. ‘We get that guy and we string him up so they can see him. We talk to them, tell them to leave or we’ll kill him.’

  McAvennie shook his head. ‘That’s insanity.’

  ‘It’s better than nothing.’

  ‘You think they’ll just leave us alone?’

  ‘All I know is that while we’re standing around having meetings, they’re actually doing stuff. Planning stuff.’

  McAvennie looked out over the crowd. ‘We’ll have a vote.’

  He gestured for the man who had been speaking to come on to the stage. His clothes were caked in mud, but the mud was smeared in straight lines, as if he had tried to brush it off. The skin on his face was loose through loss of weight. He stood alongside McAvennie, looking out over the people.

  ‘If we do something stupid now – and we don’t really know what we’re doing – then it might be disastrous.’

  The other man leaned into the microphone. ‘The powerful always win. That’s all I’m saying. Everybody knows that. And it’s even more true since the Sadness came.’

  ‘I agree,’ said McAvennie. ‘They do, aye. But it’s us that are the most powerful.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Not this time.’

  ‘OK, look.’ McAvennie was addressing the crowd now. ‘They might have minds worse than ours, be capable of going further into depravity than us. In the past we would have lost against them. But not now. Now we have a whole new society and it’s different from the old society. They might have better weapons and be more brutal but they can’t beat us because if we do what we’ve been doing since this camp started, which is sticking together, we can’t lose. My friend here said the powerful always win. Now even if you just look at the numbers, there’s nearly eleven hundred of us. We are the most powerful. In every single way. But only, only, if we keep going like we have done. Together.’ He paused.

  Miriam watched the man standing next to McAvennie. His head was lowered, almost as if in shame.

  ‘OK, let’s vote.’ McAvennie hitched his trousers up around his waist. ‘If you agree with me, put your hand up.’

  There was a pause. Everybody remained still. Nobody raised their hands. Miriam felt nervous for McAvennie. She had spoken to him only a handful of times but she trusted him. What he said made sense. She looked at all the frightened faces. Still nobody moving. She could hear the sea again. The sky was the dull grey of steel. She glanced across to Fields. He had his good arm raised in the air. She thought for a moment and then raised her own arm.

  A few heads turned towards her. She kept her hand in the air. McAvennie looked at her. His face widened into a gentle smile and he turned back to the crowd. The hands were going up. One by one, thin spikes of flesh pointing at the sky. From left to right more arms were raised. One of the women in the crowd held one arm up whilst she used the other to dig her husband in the ribs until he too fell in line. Nearly everybody had lifted their hands.

  McAvennie put his hand over the microphone. ‘OK?’ he said to the man.

  The man’s shoulders slumped and he patted McAvennie on the back.

  Miriam stared out over the sea of raised arms. And the eyes looked back at her.

  She thought he was going to squeeze her to death with the power of his hug.

  ‘I just voted. Nobody wanted to go first was all,’ she said.

  He released his bear-like grip and looked at her. He was a completely different person when he smiled. She remembered how he had told her his family had been killed. It was funny how history could be hidden away inside people’s heads.

  ‘Why don’t we just leave?’ she said.

  ‘Because we can’t. This is bigger than the camp,’ he said. ‘If we lose this place then who knows where this thing’ll stop.’

  They walked along one of the muddy paths away from the school building.

  ‘We’ve got you and your family a place to stay,’ he said.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, stopping. She was looking at something between the tents. McAvennie craned his head round to one of the open communal areas.

  ‘I know that man,’ she said. Her mind scrambled. Her memory chugged into motion. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.

  He said he had killed him. She had castigated him for it. She had pushed him away because of it. A long time ago a man had come to the house. He had tried to kill them. That was what Joseph had told her, and he said he had killed the man for it. After that, everything had snapped.

  She was standing behind him. He was sitting on a folding chair in a circle of people.

  ‘Paul,’ she said.

  The man did not move.

  ‘Paul Crowder?’ she said.

  He turned round. It was him. It was the man who had come to the house all those months ago. His thin face with the long nose, the sunken cheeks, the weak chin. It was him. He was alive. The thing that had driven Joseph further away than anything else had never happened. Joseph had let him live. Her mind fired hot with flashing synapses.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Crowder. A half-smile, half-grimace cracked across his face.

  ‘It’s me.’

  There was recognition in his eyes. He stared at her and she saw his face visibly whiten. There were ten or so other people sitting around in a little circle, all of whom had turned their attention to the strange, pregnant woman they had seen on the front steps of the school building.

  McAvennie came and stood beside her.

  ‘I’m sorry, you must have me mistaken for somebody else.’ His eyes regarded her vacantly.

  Miriam stood there, not blinking.

  ‘This is Zachary,’ she heard McAvennie say.

  The man she thought was Crowder smiled at her and turned back to the circle. She knew her memory had changed, that she did not trust it as she had, but she was sure it was the same man.

  ‘Zachary,’ said McAvennie.

  The man turned around again, glancing slyly at Miriam.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Crowder’s face stiffened and he nodded.

  ‘I can’t remember who she is,’ he said, slowly, as if scanning old memories.

  McAvennie put his arm around Miriam and led her back between the tents to the muddy path.

  ‘I know that man,’ she said quietly. ‘He came to my house. Months ago. His name’s not Zachary.’

  ‘I know.’

  She could think of no reason why he would try to be someone he wasn’t. Or perhaps he really was Zachary and Paul Crowder was the fraud.

  ‘He came here a few months ago. He was the one who brought Mims here.’

  She went to turn but McAvennie stopped her.

  ‘Miriam,’ he said. ‘I need to tell you something. About your two wee friends, Charlie and Emily.’

  Emily had said not one word. Charlie sat at the edge of her bed and there, sleepless and exhausted, the darkness came. It curled around him like a whirlpool. He tried to think of the happy times with Emily, but all the memories were behind. This was the fact that kept coming back round. There would be no new memories with her. In front of him was the great blackness. After Emily, there was nobody. Everyone he loved would be dead. He had forgotten about what had happened at the village, forgotten the men who were closing in. None of that mattered.

  During the night, as he fought himself back from the precipice of sleep, he had brought the chair right up to the bed and held Emily’s hand. His eyes stung with fatigue. Whenever he closed them they became increasingly difficult to reopen. Perhaps he should go outside, he thought. Maybe Emily would like to go for a walk.

  The sound of voices filtered through the small, square windows. Charlie stood up from his chair. His bones stretched and clicked. Pulling the white net curtain across, he looked out of the window and put his hand against the glass. Mims was out there. Two men held his arms but he was fighting to break free. A slow, burning hate crackled up to the surface.

>   There was another shout, further down what must once have been a neat lawn. McAvennie and Fields were there. McAvennie was pointing and shouting. He was pointing to a red wooden door set into a block building up near the lighthouse tower.

  The men bundled their prisoner towards the door. His head was swinging wildly from side to side. He was trying to bite them. Charlie felt a new anger now, this time towards McAvennie. His large frame and sorrowful eyes, the way he moved awkwardly, were not so endearing. Not now that Charlie knew what he allowed to happen to helpless people with no choice. You never really know anybody, he thought.

  He turned back to Emily’s bed. She was still there, supine. He had pegged the veil up on one side so he could be close to her. Her eyes were still open, still staring at the ceiling.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  Emily didn’t acknowledge him.

  A balloon of fear rose in his throat. But he had to go.

  He went quickly along the ward and out into the wide, circular space that was the base of the lighthouse tower. A thin stairwell with a metal handrail curled up around the wall, leading to a closed door painted green. There were noises coming from behind it. It was the first time he had heard the noises and they made him stop. There were more sick people upstairs. The shouts from behind the door were dull, resonating echoes. They sounded like ghosts.

  He went through into the annexe. He could hear Mims’s raised voice. It spurred him along the long, thin chamber towards the door at the far end. He thrust it open and went inside.

  It was a light room with two large windows. A table and four chairs stood in the middle of it and there was a sink in the corner.

  The two men who had Mims threw him on to the floor, where he sprawled out, arms and legs unable to break his fall. He jumped quickly back to his feet and turned to face his captors. He hunched down and it looked like he was about to attack when he stopped. His torso relaxed and he smiled, still unaware of Charlie’s presence.

  ‘Well done, men,’ he said snidely. ‘Good soldiers.’

  McAvennie came in with Fields trailing behind him. His body consumed the whole of the doorway, blanking out the light as he passed through.

  ‘What the fuck is the matter with you?’

  He moved towards Mims as if he was about to attack him. Suddenly, he became aware of Charlie, and turned to him with a look of shock he quickly tried to disguise.

  Mims turned, following McAvennie’s gaze.

  Charlie was remembering the house in the village, and what Mims had done. The will for revenge was overwhelming. Charlie had never felt the pure anger that was in him now. The framework of who he was was shifting. He could sense dark new avenues opening up inside his mind; new roads to look down that had been closed before.

  ‘What did he do?’ Charlie said. He heard his voice but it was as if through a muffling fog. He wiped his eyes and tried to clear the thought of Emily in the next room.

  ‘Charlie, son, why don’t you go back inside with Emily, eh?’ McAvennie moved towards him.

  ‘Don’t,’ Charlie said. ‘Forget it, George.’

  ‘Charlie.’

  ‘We should kill him.’ He looked in the direction of Mims. ‘And then go and euthanize all the others in there.’

  McAvennie nodded his comprehension. ‘I see. I don’t think now is the time, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s a good time for me,’ Mims chirped.

  ‘You shut your fucking mouth,’ McAvennie shouted, turning on him. ‘Or I’ll rip that snake tongue out of it.’

  ‘Well, are you going to “euthanize” those people in there?’ he said, mocking Charlie’s words. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Fields raised his hand into the air. ‘Why did you even come here, man?’

  Mims flicked his head back and smiled. ‘Because.’

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘Because I want to see what’s going to happen here.’

  ‘You’re not going to,’ McAvennie snapped. His voice was so loud it seemed to shake the room. ‘You’re out of here. Gone.’

  ‘You won’t let me go,’ he said. ‘Because of your sense of right and wrong, you self-righteous prick. You’re weak. That’s all it is. You won’t send me past that house, past those people.’

  ‘You are such a twat,’ McAvennie wheezed.

  ‘They’re going to come here. It won’t be their first massacre and it won’t be their last. They’ll take what they need and move on. This is the way things will be from now on. You know, deep down.’ He coughed. A dribble of red saliva bubbled at the corners of his mouth from his fight. He spat it into McAvennie’s face. ‘You know it, and you know there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  McAvennie grabbed Mims quickly by the throat and smashed his head against the stone wall. Mims grunted under the weight of the blow.

  ‘Fat man,’ he said. ‘This place will burn.’

  McAvennie shaped to punch Mims but stopped himself. He let go of him and, through clenched teeth, made a low, guttural sound. And stopped. He turned to one of the men behind him.

  ‘Lock him up,’ he said.

  ‘We should kill him.’

  All the heads turned towards Charlie.

  He relaxed his body.

  ‘I’m serious. I’ll do it. Fuck it.’

  McAvennie was looking at Charlie as if he felt sorry for him.

  ‘Give me a gun or something. I’ve done it before. What difference will it make now?’

  He meant every word of what he said. The new roads in his mind were resolving. The darkness rolled through the clouds above them. Killing Mims really did seem like a thing he could do. He didn’t care any more.

  ‘What do you mean, what difference?’

  ‘Come on, George, you agree with this sort of thing, right?’

  Charlie didn’t like the pitiful way everyone was looking at him. They saw him and thought they understood what he was saying, what he was going through. But they didn’t. They had no idea.

  ‘Stop it, Charlie.’ McAvennie glowered. ‘Those people were already dead. You think this is easy? Keeping all these people together? With no easy food, no easy water, no rules to follow? I have to make the tough decisions, yes, but it is never, ever, without compassion. Who else would make them? I didn’t choose to lead this place. I had to because nobody else would.’

  The direction of Charlie’s anger was out of control. The darkness in his head was swirling dangerously close to his centre, moving into channels and corridors he had always succeeded in keeping free. He knew he was behaving like a petulant child.

  ‘Go back in there,’ McAvennie said to him in a scolding and unsympathetic voice. ‘Before we both say something we regret.’

  Charlie stood there for a moment, his head hot and his legs weak. And then he left.

  Heavy with rain, the sky darkened towards night. Sandbags were piled into low turrets around the entrances to the camp. Guards were installed at them. They had lots of guns, accrued slowly over the months of salvages. Most of them were loaded but there were also those for which they had not been able to find ammunition. They were taken to the fronts for no reason other than it seemed the right thing to do.

  Miriam took the children to the utility blocks near the beach to wash. People walked quickly past them without a passing glance, each readying themselves for what would be the first night on the camp with the horsemen looking down on them from the top of the hill.

  During the course of the day eight large trucks had pulled alongside what had been Miriam’s house. As each truck arrived men dressed in black appeared from the metallic innards and passed quickly, without ceremony, into the house. Nobody knew how many men there were in total. Some said nearly a hundred had been counted, but there was no reason to think there couldn’t be a lot less than that, or a lot more.

  The camp itself had fallen into flux. People had been leaving all day, choosing to take the risk of the wide open spaces rather than wait for whatever the horsemen had in mind to do. They h
ad filed across the fields beyond the lighthouse and into the woods, leaving in small groups: young families, couples, clusters of widows, gangs of men. If they had cars then they left them behind.

  As Miriam waited in line for the showers she listened to two men standing behind her talking about why they were staying. One of them said there was no choice, that the people who had left the camp would be dead in days and that the best chance of staying alive was here. He said he couldn’t keep running any more. What would happen if they did leave? Set up another camp? A smaller one? The other man said they should have made better defences but his friend asked how, when they didn’t know what they were doing.

  Further up the line, ahead of her, people were turning round and whispering and pointing up the hill. Something was happening.

  Miriam craned her neck to see but the trailers in the car park blocked her view. The queue started to disperse in front of her like a vapour trail.

  She grabbed someone’s arm. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Miriam felt Edward and Mary grasp her hands. She turned her family round and they followed the crowd towards the entrance of the camp. They had gathered at the tall metal fences that lined the perimeter. Heads bobbed up and down in search of a better view but Miriam didn’t need to get any closer. She could see.

  The sky was a dirty metal grey so dark it made the grass of the hill beneath it look like a sea of iron filings. There were three dark shapes on the hillside, halfway between the house and the camp. Fear shot through the crowd. The shapes were just there, on the hillside, brazenly unafraid of the hundreds of people looking up at them. Three men on three horses. One of them had pulled his gas mask to the top of his head. He watched the camp through a set of binoculars.

  ‘Look at them,’ someone said behind her. ‘They don’t care. They’re not even worried.’