by Paul Kane
Mills held up a hand. "It's all right... really... I need to tell you all this..." He looked around at the faces present, then settled on Robert's. "It happened late last night. They... they came without any kind of warning... started... started..."
Robert came closer. "Who came? What did they do?"
"For Heaven's sake, Robert, can't you see the man's distressed!" Tate snapped.
"Yes, I can. And I want to know why."
Mills was choking back a sob. "They took my Elaine. Came into the village and just took her... right out of our house. I'd only just found someone who..." He sniffed back another tear, then said with hatred in his voice: "It was the Sheriff's men."
It still amazed Robert how easily that name had come back into usage, and how rather than some comic strip villain it now stood for everything that was wrong in this world - striking dread into the survivors of the virus. "They've taken people before," Robert commented, not wishing to sound cold but regretting the words as soon as he'd said them.
"Not on this scale." Mills sighed heavily. "They took at least seven people, maybe ten, and they told those who were left behind that they were going to grab more from different villages. Places loyal to you." It might have been Robert's imagination but had there been a veiled accusation in that sentence? All he'd been trying to do was help them, protect them from this monster that had taken up residence in the castle.
"What do they want them for?" asked Tate, his voice gentle but firm. "Slave labour?"
"They... They said they were going to kill them... unless..."
"Yes?" coaxed the holy man.
"Unless The Hooded Man surrenders himself to the Sheriff."
Robert had been expecting this. De Falaise was a chess player and this move was intended to draw his enemy right into the middle of the board.
"They have only till the weekend to live, then the Sheriff will begin executing them," Mills blurted out, "publicly, by hanging them in the grounds of the castle. Beginning at daybreak on Saturday."
Jack whistled, and immediately apologised for his tactlessness.
"He can't do that," Mary said, then turning to Robert, "Tell me he can't do that."
"Oh, he can," Robert assured her, "and he will. Unless I give myself up to him."
"Now hold on there just a goddamn minute," Jack said, "if you do that, who'll be left to stand up for these people? The Frenchman will just walk all over them again."
"Jack's right." This from Bill. "The whole thing'll start over again. Everything we fought for will have bin for nothin'."
"And," chipped in Granger, who had been standing silently in the crowd till then, "the Frenchman is just going to kill the villagers anyway. The guy's a psycho."
Robert stepped even closer. "You say that they're doing this all over the region?"
Mills nodded.
"How many people do we have out there at the moment, delivering to villages?"
"Not that many, why?" Jack said.
"Why? Because they're in danger. More than they ever were before. The chances of our men and the Sheriff's men running into each other are much higher."
"Oh no," said Bill, standing upright.
Robert hobbled over. "What is it?"
Bill gazed at him, wide-eyed. "We have a team out deliverin' not far from Newstead today. They set off early this mornin'. Tony Saddler's leading it, you know, the ex TA bloke we recruited from Kersall."
"Newstead? That's only a stone's throw from Ravenshead," Robert said to himself. "We have to radio and warn them."
"That's not all."
"Go on." said Robert.
"Mark's wi' that team."
Robert's mouth fell open. Mark. Snatches of the nightmare came back to him, glimpses of De Falaise clutching the boy, holding the gun to his head. "How could you have let him go off like that?"
"How was I supposed to stop him? Lad's got a mind of his own. 'E wanted to help, an' I figured he'd be safe enough in Saddler's group."
Robert said nothing, just stared at Bill in disbelief.
"Mark's bin lookin' after himsen for years. I thought it'd be all right. I didn't bloody well know about all this lot, did I?"
Robert turned to Jack. "Get on the radio, find out their location. Warn them they might run into some company."
"I didn't know..." Bill called out after him.
But Robert wasn't taking any notice, he was too busy following Jack as the big man took off his cap, placed a set of earphones on his head, and worked the radio he'd cannibalised from one of the stolen vehicles (as a kid shortwave had been one of his hobbies, and a way of keeping in touch with the world outside upstate New York). "Come in Green Five, are you reading me? Over." Jack listened intently, one hand on the left earphone. He repeated the message.
"Anything?" Robert asked after a few moments.
"Not yet. I'm having trouble raising them. It's just static on their wavelength. Could be that they're just in a black spot."
"Or something else. Keep trying."
"Hey, sure. I like the little squirt. He's my biggest fan." Robert patted him on the shoulder and staggered back to the tent. Mary chased after him.
"I hope you're not thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing."
Robert stopped, turned, was about to say something, then didn't bother. He reached inside, bringing out his bow and quiver.
"You're crazy," she told him. "Look at you. You can barely stand."
"I can manage," he assured her.
"Like hell!"
He began to walk away from her, but she raced around the front and stood in his way. "Mary, please. I have to go. I have to try and warn them."
Robert saw her checking his eyes for any sign of relenting. When she found none, she said, "Right, well, you're going to need a driver then."
"I said I can manage," he told her, then missed a step and almost keeled over. He recovered before Mary could grab him.
"Either you let me drive or I'm going to fetch that sword. Right now. I mean it."
Robert sighed again, then nodded. She fell in alongside him as they made their way out of the forest towards the confiscated jeeps.
Mary wasn't the only one who'd insisted on tagging along. Bill, who didn't come right out and say it, but was obviously feeling guilty about Mark, caught up with them as they were climbing into the vehicle. Robert didn't say anything. He just gestured for Mary to start the engine. She was well used to driving Land Rovers and the like, she told them, so this was no problem for her. In fact, Robert had to admit he was impressed with the way she guided the jeep over fields while he consulted the map - steering clear of the roads as much as possible in case they were seen.
They covered the distance cross-country quite quickly, keeping in touch with Jack to see if he'd been able to contact Green Five. Robert had personally okay'd their leader after witnessing how he handled himself when defending his own community against the Sheriff's men. Robert and his group had come in on the tail end of the fight, but when it was over and the invaders had decided to take flight, Robert asked Tony Saddler if he would consider joining them. "We can always use someone with your expertise," he'd told him. The chestnut-haired man had needed little persuasion to put his training to good use. He was an experienced soldier, who'd been serving in the Territorial Army when the virus hit. Mark should be in safe hands with Tony.
So why did Robert have such a nagging feeling that something had already gone disastrously wrong? Was it just the dream, or something else? The radio silence? Could be just out of range as Jack said, or even that the equipment at their end was broken. But Robert doubted it.
When they reached Green Five's last known location, Robert's worst fears were confirmed. As they made their way down one last dirt track, they saw the smoke rising above the trees, into the early evening sky. The village Saddler and his team had been delivering to was pretty much like any other in the region, and had no doubt once been beautiful in its heyday. Quaint cottages lined the roads even before th
ey got to the main street, but now they were either in ruins or the walls were dotted with bullet holes.
It was even worse in the centre of the village. A truck had jackknifed, blocking off the road, though Robert couldn't tell if it was one of theirs or De Falaise's - seeing as they'd originally stolen their vehicles from him. Here and there were upturned motorbikes. And bodies, plenty of bodies.
"Judas Priest!" said Bill as they edged closer.
"Bring us in slowly, Mary - and keep your eyes peeled." Robert glanced over and saw her take one hand off the steering wheel to pick up a Peacekeeper. He gripped his bow tightly, though there wasn't enough room to prime it. Mary braked gently when they arrived at the truck, bringing the jeep to a stop but not putting on the handbrake in case they needed to beat a hasty retreat.
"Wait here," Robert said to Mary, "Keep the engine running." He opened the door and hopped down, still wobbly but feeling better for the fact that he could now use his bow. Bill joined him, shotgun at the ready. They advanced together.
It was no longer a peaceful British village in the countryside; now it resembled the streets of some foreign war-torn land.
Some of the bodies Robert recognised, though they were in terrible condition. These were his men, all right: what was left of Green Five. My God! Mark... he thought, scanning the ground to see if he could spot him, but hoping against hope he wouldn't.
What he did see was Saddler. The man had made it several metres from the truck, crawling, leaving a streak of blood behind him. He had given up when he came to a grass verge and simply collapsed onto it.
Bill covered him as Robert crouched down to feel Saddler's neck. There was nothing. He shook his head and caught the look in Bill's eye.
They noticed movement across the street and both Robert and Bill swung their weapons in its direction.
The figure coming towards them had its hands in the air and was shouting: "Don't shoot, please don't shoot."
Robert could see now that it was a young girl of about fifteen. Where her face wasn't covered in freckles it was dirty, the pale yellow dress that she was wearing was ripped in places.
"Who are you?" shouted Bill.
"My name's Sophie," she told him. "I live..." She looked around at the devastation. "I live here. He's... he's The Hooded Man, isn't he? Like in the stories..."
There were more people emerging from the damaged houses. They ranged in ages from the elderly to some as young as Sophie.
"What happened here?" asked Robert. "What happened to my men?"
"The Sheriff," she said.
"Your people were in the middle of giving us food and blankets," a man with a shock of white hair told them, "when the attack came. They didn't stand a chance."
"How long ago?" Bill asked him.
"Not long. Two, three hours. They took quite a few of our people with them. Kidnapped them, bundled them into the backs of their trucks. They said that unless you surrender yourself to—"
"Yes," Robert broke in. "Yes, I know what they want. What happened to the boy?"
The old man looked confused.
"About this high. Mop of dirty blond hair, wearing a tracksuit. Always carries a backpack."
"Mark!" said Sophie. "You're talking about Mark."
"That's right. You know him?"
"Only a little," Sophie said. "The men were going to take me away, but he gave himself up instead, told them to take him. He protected me, even when they tried to..." Sophie swallowed hard. "We were in the house back there when they came, you see. I was fixing him a glass of fresh apple juice - they grow not far away in the orchard..."
"Hold on, so the Sheriff's blokes didn't know the lad was one of us then?" said Bill.
"I... I don't think so," Sophie replied. "I didn't tell them, anyway."
Bill turned to Robert. "That's summat at least. If he's just another villager to them, it might keep 'im alive."
"For now," Robert reminded him.
Mary joined them. She went over to check if anybody had wounds, if they needed help. Robert watched her for a moment or two, then limped across to sit on a wooden bench.
Moments later, Sophie followed. She stood in front of him. "I've heard about the things you can do. You're going to save him, now, aren't you? You're going to bring everyone back? Rescue them?"
Mary came up behind and put her hands on Sophie's shoulders. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up," she told the girl, ushering her away before Robert could answer.
Sophie looked back over her shoulder as if still waiting for him to shout his reply. Robert let his head drop, the words still echoing in his ears, tinged with the naivety of youth.
You're going to save him, aren't you?
Aren't you?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They'd been waiting in the truck now for about twenty minutes.
Mark especially. Waiting, tensed, picking at the material of his empty backpack.
He looked round at the faces in here, each one the same tangle of anguish. Every prisoner asking the same thing. Were they going to get out of this alive? All of them had been bound at the wrists with plastic ties, so tight they cut into the skin. The people who'd been collected in this particular truck had been bundled in any which way, face down, sitting, on their knees: manhandled by the Sheriff's men on their rounds amassing hostages.
That's why they were standing now, engine idling, as the men with machine guns ravaged yet another village known to have been accepting help from The Hooded Man. Mark shut his eyes, but then the memories of the attack rushed back. He'd been helping unload goods and distribute them. Jacob, one of the guys who'd been shanghaied into the Sheriff's army, and was now glad to be out of it, had nudged Mark and pointed across at a local girl staring at them. She was wearing a yellow dress and had freckles on her cheeks.
"Think she likes you. She's been gaping over all the time we've been here." Jacob grinned.
"Get out of it," Mark had replied.
Jacob had made a kissing gesture then and Mark hit him on the arm. "Hey, I was only playing with you - should count yourself lucky if she does. Pretty girl, that."
She was. Though he still considered himself too young for all that kind of nonsense, Mark had done quite a bit of growing up in the last couple of years. Had been forced to. So while he was still a kid in many respects, he was more mature than many thirteen year olds. And he had begun, finally, to notice the opposite sex. Maybe Jacob had a point in his own clumsy way, and you could never have too many friends. So, he'd nervously met her eye a few times as Tony Saddler continued organising the drop. Mark had been sad when he looked up at the end and found the girl gone.
"Good work, guys," Tony told them, "take a breather."
Mark looked around for the girl again, but it had been her who found him, tapping him on the shoulder and saying hello. She introduced herself as Sophie and asked if he wanted a drink after all that hard work.
Mark nodded shyly, then followed her into the house where he assumed she lived. "It's not mine, of course, but I chose it when I came here." He remembered thinking that maybe he wasn't the only one who'd had to mature quickly; at just fourteen Sophie was running her own little household by the looks of things. She'd originally come from West Bridgford, she told him, just the other side of Nottingham: a small place that had been taken over by gangs and thugs believing they owned the joint. They had driven her out, and she'd begun the journey further north, hoping to find somewhere quieter; somewhere safer. On the road she'd hooked up with a group of men and women doing the same, and fell in with them. Then they'd settled here.
"It was peaceful for a while," she told Mark as she fixed him his drink. "We got on with our lives, made plans, began to imagine the future might be different. But then the Sheriff's men came."
"Sounds familiar," he told her.
She shrugged. "We got off lightly compared to some I've heard about. They just took things, not people. So," Sophie had said as she offered him a seat, "what's he like?"
"Who?"
She laughed. "The Hooded Man, silly."
"Oh," said Mark, deflating somewhat. "He's... well, he's pretty cool, really."
"Is it true he once took on fifty of the Sheriff's men single handed?"
Mark stared hard at her. "Erm..."
"That he's seven foot tall with a square chin and broad shoulders?"
Mark squirmed in the chair; he hadn't been expecting to be fielding questions about her crush on Robert. "He's quite old," Mark informed her. "Old enough to be my... well, your dad too, really."
She seemed a little disappointed by that. "Really? I heard he was about nineteen, twenty."
Mark shook his head. "But you do know I'm like his second in command, don't you?"
Sophie seemed to perk up at that. "Really?"
Mark nodded. "He runs everything by me. I'm his official advisor as well, his PR man, the works."
She pulled up a stool and brought it round the side of the table to sit near Mark. Sophie was only a few inches away and, without realising it, he found himself breathing in and out a little too quickly. "Tell me more," she said, bubbling with excitement. "Have you been in many battles with him?"
"Oh yeah, course. Loads."
Sophie practically jumped up and down with delight. "So, go on, I want to hear about the best one."
Mark thought for a moment. "Well, there was this one time at market when—"
He hadn't got any further before he heard the gunfire. Both he and Sophie rushed to the window and looked out, in time to see Tony Saddler and the other men dropping to defensive positions as bullets whistled around them. They were being picked off one by one, sitting targets in the middle of the road. Someone started up the armoured truck, but before they could pull away, an explosion flipped it onto its side. Mark pulled Sophie from the window just as a hail of gunfire shattered the glass, spraying them with fragments.
"Get back," Mark shouted to her, and she nodded, terrified. What had been just stories before, entertainment and excitement, was suddenly real and happening right now. More bullets ricocheted off the door of the house - and then suddenly there were soldiers, forcing their way inside.
