by Jack Lewis
Lou leaned against the bannister. “I know what you mean.”
Alice crossed her arms. “Let’s just see Victoria.”
Two men stood outside Victoria’s office. One of them scowled, and his fingers moved as he gripped the knife in his hand. It was a hunting knife with a green handle. The blade was serrated, and the edge of it was stained with dried blood. The man next to him watched the three of us intently. I didn’t recognise the men, but it had only been a matter of time before Victoria got new guards after what happened to Steve.
I opened the door, stepped into the room, and then stopped. Victoria wasn’t behind the desk. I’d expected her sat there, stern faced, a cigarette hanging between her fingers. Instead, Ewan Judah filled her seat. He sat with his back wedged into the chair and his boots propped up on the table. He spread his arms wide and gave a smile.
“Morning Kyle. What a pleasure to see you.”
26
Victoria’s office looked like the scene of a drunken punch up. The bookcase behind her was missing books like a boxer missing teeth. In the corner, Victoria’s watercolour canvas lay on the floor with a boot print in the middle. At some point her ashtray had tipped over and spread ash on the floor.
Lou stepped forward. The colour was back in her cheeks now, a flush of anger that washed away the traces of tiredness.
“You better explain yourself,” she said.
Ewan put his hands behind his head and leant back like he was reclining on a beach. There was smugness in the way he smiled, the self-satisfied grin of a man who loved himself. The chair behind him seemed to wilt, as though his bulk were bending the framework. When Victoria sat in it, the chair had looked enormous. Ewan’s presence made the office shrink.
“You guys smell smoky,” he said. “The smell got bad, so I had to shut the window. Shame, because it gets stuffy in here.”
I stepped forward and leaned on the desk. “Where’s Victoria?”
Ewan put a finger to his temple and drummed it. He leaned back, stared at the ceiling. “Victoria, Victoria.”
He put his hand to his chin. He bolted forward, his grin wider than ever, the edges of his lips curling like a circus clown. It made my head pound with anger, and I realised I was gripping the edge of the desk. I laid my hands flat on the table.
“Oh yeah.” said Ewan. “You mean the lady who used to sit here.”
If I looked into his eyes for much longer I was going to flip the desk over. Or try to, at least. I turned to Alice. “I can’t deal with this guy,” I said.
Alice spoke a stern voice that wouldn’t have been out of place in the classroom. “Cut the crap, Ewan. I’m tired of it. Tell us where Victoria is.”
Ewan got up out of the chair. At six feet tall he was still smaller than Lou, and that was with the extra inch the heels of his boots added. What he lacked in height he made up for in bulk, with a frame that wasn’t muscled but looked like it could withstand a torpedo. He wore a mix of office wear and hunting gear; a crease-free blue shirt and black trousers with a green hunting belt hanging off his waist.
He reached to the floor and picked up a cane. It was made of polished wood that was so black it looked like it had been scorched, and the top of the cane was a silver bear head. He held the cane in his hand but he didn’t press it to the ground, instead carrying it with him as he walked to the window with a confident waddle. On anyone else the look would have been amusing, but there was something about Ewan that left a bitter taste in my mouth.
He walked to the window and rested his arms on the frame. He turned to me and beckoned me over.
“What do you think of this?” he said, gesturing at the cane. “Found it in one of the supply rooms. Think it belonged to an old mayor.”
I screwed up my face and grunted in acknowledgment.
“You want to know where Victoria is?” he said.
I nodded. I didn’t want to spend another second with Ewan if I didn’t have to. We needed to see Victoria and tell her we had the dynamite.
Ewan pointed at the window and dragged his finger across the frame, smearing a film of grease along it. I followed his finger until it stopped at the school. Behind it the grey swirls of smoke billowed into the air and released their toxic chemicals into the waiting sky.
Ewan looked at me. His black pupils seemed to swell in his eyes like ink droplets dispersing into water. They were eyes that could hold a gaze for as long as Ewan liked, but not ones that you would ever want to look into.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“You wanted to know where Victoria is?”
I sighed. Hot needles stabbed my neck. “Drop the act and tell me where the hell she is.”
Ewan’s grin spread impossibly wide, as though his lips were trying to stretch off his face. “I’m showing you, Kyle. Victoria’s over there. That’s her rising into the sky.”
I watched the black smoke rise up to the heavens, defiling the blue sky and seeping out across the horizon. The truth hit me like a plunge into an ice bath, and I felt shards of cold stab through my back and chest. Suddenly I knew what the swirls of smoke meant and what was burning. My stomach twisted and vomit rose up my throat.
Alice stepped forward. Her face was reddened by anger into a crimson hue. She grabbed Ewan by the shoulders.
“What have you done?”
Ewan cried out and tried to shake himself free. The office door opened and the guards outside stepped in. I realised that they weren’t Victoria’s guards. These were Ewan’s men. One of them held up his serrated hunting knife and stepped toward me.
Lou stepped in close to me. I looked around the room for a weapon, but there was nothing in reach. Gritting my teeth and feeling the flush of anger melt the ice inside me, I stepped forward and got ready to fight.
Something crashed into the back of my head. My ears rang, and my vision twinkled as though my eyes were a television blinking through poor transmission. Hot pain exploded on the back of my skull, and a warm trickle of blood ran over my hair and onto my neck. I turned round in time to see Ewan, his cane raised, ready to strike me again.
27
Why does life always run in circles? I thought as I paced the stony floor of the pen. I kicked out and sent a scatter of stones rolling across the ground. Lou and Alice sat next to each other on the other side of the enclosure. The swelling of a purple bump marred Alice’s head. Lou’s face was untouched, but her legs were covered in dirt from sitting on the floor.
I walked across to them. We were back in the same pen Victoria had kept us in when we had first arrived at Bleakholt. Back then Billy had led us in. I wondered what had happened to Billy, what his part had been in all of this. Had he helped Ewan? No, surely he would never do that.
“You think the entire town was in on it?” said Lou. She looked up at me, her gaze hard enough to smash through stone.
My leg ached. I wanted to lower myself to the ground and take the weight off it, but sitting down felt like giving up. We might have been locked in a pen that was closed off by a chain-link fence, but I wasn’t staying here. We’d get out, somehow.
“No,” I said. “Not everyone. A lot of people loved Victoria.”
“Obviously not enough,” said Alice.
She rubbed the swelling on her head and winced when her fingers slid over the part that was cut. Every so often she cast her glance back to Bleakholt School, where right now Ben would be in classes. Did he have any idea what happened to his mum? Could he see the fire through the classroom windows? Were all the school kids watching the bonfire of bodies?
She petulantly kicked out at the ground. “Then why didn’t anyone help her?”
“Ewan took everyone by surprise. He did it in the middle of the night, when most people would be in bed. And he got to Victoria first. He knew that if he stood up to her in the daylight, with everyone around, then people would fight him. But if he killed Victoria in the dead of night, there would be nobody there to stop him.”
“Bastard,” said Alice. Sh
e glanced over to the school, and she pressed her hand into the ground as though she were transmitting all her anger into the stone floor.
My body had been through so many emotions that I felt drained. My stomach was zapped with shock when I realised what Ewan had done, and then anger flooded my body as the need for revenge grew hot inside me. But now that was gone. I was empty, like a dish cloth wrung of water.
I had started to like Victoria, and she didn’t deserve this. Deep down she wanted the best for everyone, and thinking of what Ewan had done made my blood heat up. I couldn’t dwell on it. We needed to get out of here, and we weren’t going to do that with hot heads. At times like this, practicality was always better than emotion.
“We need to get out,” I said.
Lou rolled her eyes. “Thanks, detective.”
Alice gave her a sidelong look. “See your guilt didn’t last long, then.”
Lou glanced down at the ground.
“We can’t get out by force,” I said. “We need to think.”
I said the words, but I didn’t have anything to back them up with. My head felt empty, a barrel empty except for a millimetre of anger that sloshed at the bottom. I looked at the chain fence that surrounded us. At twenty feet high, it was too tall to climb over. Even if Lou or Alice could give me a boost, broken glass was glued to the top of the fence, and I didn’t like the idea of slicing my hand open. The chain link that meshed the fence together wasn’t thick, but we still needed tools to get through it. Ewan hadn’t seen fit to provide us with bolt cutters when he imprisoned us.
The metal of the chain link rattled. I turned and saw the gate open. Ewan waddled through, his heels scraping across the stones. He held the silver-tipped cane over the shoulder of an expensive looking yellow suit. He looked like a Texan oil baron inspecting his claim.
Lou got to her feet. She held her hand out to Alice, who shook her head and struggled to her feet on her own. Lou marched toward Ewan. Ewan held up a hand. Lou stopped.
“Hold your horses little girl,” he said. “I’ve come to talk to the man of the house. Is your daddy in?”
Lou’s face flinched in anger. She was about to step forward when Ewan’s guards stepped through the gate. The one on the left held his hunting knife at waist height, his knuckles white with the force of his grip.
Alice put her hand on Lou’s shoulder. “Just ignore it,” she said, in the same soothing tone she used with Ben. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
I felt pin pricks of heat on my shoulders and neck, and I found myself scanning the floor for rocks big enough to do damage. Seeing Ewan brought up the same feelings I had when I saw Moe. Pure, almost uncontrollable, anger.
Ewan pulled his cane away from his shoulder and tapped the silver bear-head against his palm.
“Hope you understand why you’re here,” he said.
“Because you’re a poisonous little fucker,” Lou spat.
A grin slid on Ewan’s face. “I was hoping you’d have cooled off by now.”
“After what you did, you’re lucky we didn’t kill you in the office,” I said.
“Oh really? It seemed to me that you were actually the lucky ones.”
I shook my head. “What the hell do you want?”
Ewan smiled. It looked like he was trying for a comforting gesture rather than a mocking one, but any expression of his managed to turn poisonous.
“Despite our differences, I really don’t want to keep you in here. Did you know, Kyle, that since Victoria came to Bleakholt, only eight people have ever gone more than twenty miles away? What does that say to you?”
“That she was careful.”
He tutted. “No, no, no. She was soft. And she let everyone else get soft with her. But you’re not like that, are you? How many years did you spend in the Wilds?”
“More than you, I bet,” I said.
Ewan nodded. “True. And that’s why I want us to work together.”
Alice shot him a puzzled look. “And you think this is the way to do it? By killing Victoria and throwing us in here?”
Ewan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, like a parent sick of repeating the same conversation with their child.
“Can we move past that? She’s gone, she’s not coming back, and we’ll all miss her terribly. Blah blah blah. I’m here to offer you a way forward. Work with me. Give me your survival experience. Use it to teach people how to live in the Wilds. Teach them to be strong. Do that and I’ll let you stay in Bleakholt. You’ll eat like a king and sleep in a feather bed.”
“Why do you even want to stay?” said Lou. “Don’t you know there’s half a million infected headed this way? Why not just pack up and leave?”
Ewan tapped his cane into his hand. The silver of the bear head was scratched. “And go where? Do you know anywhere as geographically sound? With a big fucking mountain blocking anything from the south? Bleakholt is like a barmaid with curvy hips and big tits. Physically blessed.”
“You’re disgusting,” said Alice.
Lou flinched at Ewan’s patronising words. “The wave will tear you apart. You’re not strong enough to lead anyone.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ewan. “If it comes to it, we have a fuelled-up double decker bus that can carry eighty people. If things turn to shit and I want out, I’ll get out. But I don’t give things up easily.”
He paced back and forth on the stony floor like a university lecturer talking to a group of freshmen.
“I used to be married, you know. I say ‘used to be’, because she’s dead now, and there’s no more final a divorce than that. But get this. While we were married, my wife took a fancy to my friend. She and him carried on behind my back. They plotted with each other. Thought about how they were going to run away and start a happy life together. All they needed was me to sign the divorce papers. But guess what?”
He looked at us as if he expected one of us to answer. None of us did. Ewan carried on.
“I didn’t give her the divorce. I stayed married to the bitch for fifteen years out of spite. What does that tell you? That I’m a heartless bastard? Maybe. But I’m also a stubborn one. I don’t give up what’s mine, and the infected are going to have to tear the flesh from my bones before I let them take Bleakholt.”
Lou shook her head wildly as if she had been asked to walk naked through a stalker nest. Alice stood, arms folded, face deep in thought. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to reach forward, grab Ewan’s cane and beat him until his skull cracked.
I took a deep breath. I faced Lou, gave her a look that I hoped she understood as ‘trust me.’
“Is this what it has all been about?” I asked.
Ewan tilted his head. “What?”
“You wanting power. Scheming to take it from Victoria. Is it because you think you’re stronger than her?”
Ewan closed his eyes solemnly for a few seconds as if processing the question. “I just want what’s best for Bleakholt.”
“You don’t have a clue,” I said.
“Be that as it may, you’ll have to get used to it. If you want your friends to stay here, to stay safe, you’ll have to do what I say.”
I gritted my teeth. “And that about the wave? What’s your plan? Because Bleakholt is only safe as long as we can deal with them.”
Ewan flicked his hand in the air. “Don’t worry about them.”
I looked at Alice stood on weak legs, casting her eyes over to the school every few minutes, unable to concentrate on anything but her son. The boy deserved a safe place to grow up, and despite what was headed toward us, this was the safest place around. Or it could be. If we could only block the hills and divert the wave, they’d move on.
I sighed. “What is it exactly that you want?”
Ewan adjusted the collar of his jacket like a business man preparing for a meeting. “I want to banish the boy. And I don’t want you to fight me when I do it.”
Alice’s face reddened. She looked nervously over at the school. Ewan s
hook his head.
“Not him. The teenager. The one with the red in his eyes.”
Lou stepped forward, eyes wide, brow furrowed. “Justin!”
“That’s the one.”
“But why?” said Lou.
Ewan’s eyes narrowed his eyes like a snake spotting a bird’s nest.
“Because the boy’s infected. While he’s in Bleakholt, nobody is safe. So your choice is simple. Stay and put your skills to use. Help me defend Bleakholt. Build a life somewhere safe. Or leave with your friend and die in the Wilds.”
Behind him dark clouds swallowed the sun and cast a grey tint on the rest of the sky. They were bloated with rain, swollen enough to make everything seem a shade darker. The cobblestones of Bleakholt and the stone buildings behind them looked greyer than ever before.
