The Path to Destruction

by Rebecca Fernfield

  “It’s too dangerous to go up there.”

  “I’ll get the ladders.”

  “No! Even if you get the ladders, the ceiling may give way and if you fall through …”

  “What do you want to do then? Kyle-”

  “I want him back!” she blurts.

  “Yes, but-”

  “No, I know I can’t have him back, but … I miss him so much.” She quiets and lets the pain roll over her before looking at Deacon again. “You can’t risk your life trying to find him.”

  “I don’t think we will find him—up there. The fire was intense—there may not be much …”

  “Yes,” she sighs as nausea rolls again in her belly. “I … can we take Kit and leave?”

  “Are you sure, Finn?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I loved Kyle, he was like a brother to me, and it hurts to leave him here, but … but I can’t risk losing you too.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  She nods. “Let’s take Kyle home,” she says bending to pick up the corner of blue tarpaulin.

  Chapter 3

  Three Peaks Farm

  “You can’t go in there,” Victor says stepping in front of the living room door as Rick reaches out his hand to turn the knob.

  “What?” he asks incredulous. “Get out of my way!”

  “No,” Victor replies with determination as Max, another of Sebastian’s ‘brethren’, closes in to stand beside him.

  “Brother Sebastian is speaking. He can’t be interrupted.”

  “Listen! I’ve had enough of this ridiculous mumbo jumbo. I need to speak to Becca.”

  “Sebastian is counselling her; he’s all she needs.”

  “Don’t talk out of your arse, man! Get out of my way.”

  The two men close ranks and block the door. Victor stretches his arms between the door frames, his body a barrier.

  “Listen, if you don’t move I’ll make you regret it,” Rick seethes as he reaches for the door’s knob behind Victors back. Sick and tired of these muppets! Max slaps at Rick’s hands.

  “What the!” Rick stands back, holds Victor’s stare, clenches his fist and slams it into Max’s jaw. The man staggers, smashing the back of his head into Victor’s face. The door reverberates as Victor’s head knocks hard against it. He’ll teach them. No one refuses him entry when he asks! As Victor staggers away to the left, Rick takes his chance and thumps his fist into Victor’s belly. The man groans, clutches at his stomach, the blood from his nose already dripping to his lip. “Now move!” Rick grinds as he takes hold of the door’s handle. He twists it and pushes, but the door only bangs in its frame. “Becca!” he calls. “Becca, it’s Rick. Open up!”

  Above the groans of the men recovering from his anger, footsteps approach from behind the door. A key twists in the lock and the door opens. Sebastian stands, blocking Rick’s view.

  “Yes?” he asks, looking down at Rick. Who the very hell does he think he is? “Becca. I need Becca to come with me. Now!”

  “Rick …”

  “Becca is undergoing instruction and-”

  “Get out of my way!” Rick says, his voice cold with anger. What an arse! Head stuck right up there! “Becca,” he calls pushing against Sebastian’s chest with his shoulder. The man doesn’t budge. “You can’t hold her hostage in there!” Rick says, incredulous at the man’s gall. What was happening here? How could this man have grown in power in such a short space of time?

  “It’s alright, Rick. Sebastian’s not holding me hostage,” Becca replies as Rick continues to push. She looks oddly alive, despite the tiredness that weeks of worry and overwork have wrought on her face.

  “You need to come upstairs to see Justin,” he says looking at her over Sebastian’s shoulder. “Cassie sent me.”

  “Yes, I’ll come,” she returns.

  Rick frowns at the seeming lack of concern, her implacable face, the suddenly glazed eyes. If he’d come to fetch her this time last week she’d have pushed past him and torn up the stairs. Sebastian drops his arm and steps back into the room, widening the gap to let her through. As she passes, he catches her arm. “We’ll continue our talk later. Remember what I said, and stay strong. All will be well.”

  “Yes,” she replies and Rick watches as he holds her gaze, nods, then releases her arm. She passes Rick with calm and walks towards the stairs without any hint of urgency.

  “Becca,” Rick says as he steps up behind her. “It’s Justin, he-”

  “Yes, I know,” she says as she steps up onto the landing.

  “You know?”

  “Yes,” she says then turns away and walks to the bedroom where Justin lies.

  The room is stuffy with the fire kept lit day and night to keep him warm, but his skin looks cold and clammy, and the warmth does nothing to bring colour to his face. His breathing is laboured and his chest heaves as he gasps at breath. Cassie, holds his hand and turns to Becca as she enters the room.

  “Here,” she says standing from the chair at his bedside, and lifts Justin’s hand to Becca.

  Taking his hand, she sits and strokes his hair, then holds his hand to her cheek. Footsteps sound on the stairs and Sebastian stands in the doorway.

  “This is private,” Rick insists with a soft voice as the man stands at his shoulder.

  Sebastian ignores Rick’s warning and pushes past. With anger rising, but not wanting to cause any disturbance, Rick moves to the side and let’s Sebastian into the room where he crouches next to Becca and begins to whisper in her ear.

  Becca turns. “Can you leave us alone?” she asks, looking first at Cassie and then at Rick.

  A wave of hurt washes over Cassie’s face. “Sure,” she replies and steps away from the pair giving Rick a pained and questioning frown. As they hover by the door Sebastian speaks up.

  “Please,” he implores with a cold stare. “It’s time for you to leave. Becca needs to be alone with her husband.”

  Justin’s chest heaves again.

  “But-”

  “It’s what she wants,” he continues, his eyes steel as he stares at Rick.

  “We’ll go downstairs,” Cassie replies stepping next to Rick and pulling him gently towards the landing.

  “Becca?” Rick questions.

  “Yes, Rick, please do as Sebastian asks.”

  Sebastian smirks and Rick grits his teeth, ignoring the urge to stride across the carpet and grab him by the throat.

  “Come on, Rick,” Cassie urges and pulls at him again.

  With a final glare at Sebastian, Rick relents and follows Cassie out of the room and onto the landing. As he takes the first step down the stairs he looks back into the room. Sebastian stands behind Becca, his hands cupping her shoulders as he leans in to speak.

  “Tell him, Becca,” he urges with a whispering voice.

  She nods and strokes Justin’s forehead.

  “You can go now, Justin,” she tells him. “It’s time to go.”

  Justin heaves again, sucking at the air and the door begins to close. In the final seconds before it shuts, Rick watches in horror as Sebastian passes a pillow to Becca, and she accepts it with a smile. The door closes with a click of its latch.

  “Come down, Rick,” Cassie urges from the bottom of the stairs. “Let her say her goodbyes in private, if that’s what she wants.”

  The hairs on Rick’s neck prickle as he stands transfixed, unable to take his eyes from the white panels of the door and its round brass handle. He turns to Cassie.

  “But-”

  “It’s what she wants, Rick.”

  “I think she just …”

  “Just?”

  Rick turns again to the door and imagines Becca pressing the pillow hard against Justin’s head.

  “It’s Justin’s time, Rick. You could see that,” Cassie says treading back up the stairs. She holds out her hand. He takes it as she looks at him with a gentle sadness. “He suffered so much, Rick. He’ll be out of his pain. Come down. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”<
br />
  He recognises the truth of her words. Justin had suffered. In truth, his time was up the moment he’d been shot. Without medicine or doctors there had been no hope for him. Had Becca really put an end to his suffering?

  “She had a pillow …”

  “A pillow?”

  “Yes, Sebastian picked up a pillow and gave it to her.”

  “Oh?” Cassie replies catching his gaze then looks to the door with a frown. “It’s probably just to make him more comfortable—lift his head to ease his breathing.”

  Rick sighs, relief easing his discomfort. “Yes,” he replies. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Well, what else would it be for?” she asks with a quizzical frown then turns back down the stairs, her hand warm around his, and leads him to the kitchen.

  Chapter 4

  Deacon takes a long, deep breath and looks out over the water. The river run swift and brown, the reflection of the bright blue sky making no impact on its muddied depths. Beneath the dirt, his hands are red, sore with the effort of digging out the grave, and he’s thankful that the frost he’d expected last night hadn’t come. Instead, the day is surprisingly warm, the snow melted and the ground no longer frozen hard. He wipes away the sweat beading on his forehead, leaves a trail of gritty dirt across his brow, and looks along the length of the river.

  “Kit loved it here,” he says taking in the massive bridge, its road suspended high above the river, arcs of steel holding it high. A seagull squawks as it swoops, the white of its underbelly flashing in the sun. A group of long-legged wading birds pick their way among the mud flats, leaving imprints of toes. “We’d come up here, even when the snow was deep, and walk along the bank. That there, leads out to the sea,” he continues pointing along the river.

  “It’s a good place for him,” Finn says and slips her hand through his. A wave of comfort washes over him and he returns her grip.

  “Yes, I think it is,” he says and looks down again to the oblong of freshly dug soil.

  “I’ve got them,” Lina calls with a soft voice.

  Deacon turns and sees the armfuls of holly, dotted with red berries that sit in bright clusters against the dark green of its glossy leaves. She takes a small branch and hands it to Finn and then another to Deacon before squatting and placing hers at Kit’s head. Finn follows her lead and places hers on the soil.

  “Rest in peace, Kit,” she says quietly. “And Kyle, this is for you too my lovely boy.” Her voice trembles with emotion as she stands and Deacon’s eyes begin to fill as he watches the tears spill over her lashes. He sniffs and squats down before his own tears well up, then lays the bright-berried branch over Kit’s heart.

  He wants to speak, say something meaningful, but the words seem trite. He squats a moment more and remembers their first meeting at the roadside café; Kit’s offer of a drink even though it was his last, and the sharing of food. Kit had taught him how to survive, given him a sense of purpose after Jules’ death, and brought him back to life. Now he was dead and Deacon’s anger had returned stronger than ever. Saskia would pay. Dan Morgan would pay. He’d get his revenge, even if it killed him.

  “Kit, my boy … rest …” He falters and tears spill onto his cheeks, and the bright red berries blur against the green leaves. Finns crouches beside him and slips her arm across his back. “He was like a son, Finn.” She leans into him, her head resting against his shoulder. “He was the only thing that was good in this world and they took him from me.” He takes a deep breath, and pushes down the pain. “Rest in peace, son,” he says patting the soil. Standing, he looks across to the horizon and the estuary leading to the sea. “Saskia will pay,” he says with vehemence. “And when I’ve finished with her, I’m going to hunt him down.” He turns and walks back down the bank, following the muddy path into the trees and waits for Finn and Lina to catch up with him.

  “Who are you going to hunt down?” Finn asks as she joins him.

  “Dan Morgan.”

  “Dan?” Lina blurts.

  “Yes, Dan Morgan,” Deacon says surprised at her outburst. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes, well, kind of. Him and Cassie, they helped me escape from … it doesn’t matter.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Deacon asks incredulous.

  “No.” Finn replies.

  “You know him too?”

  “I only met him once—at the supermarket.”

  “He was here?” Deacon stares at the girls, struggling to process the revelation.

  “Yes,” Finn replies. “He was with Cassie and Rick. They tried to get into the supermarket, but Saskia … well she did what Saskia always does—turned psycho. She got her henchmen to fight them off with crossbows and when that failed she did the job herself.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, she shot Cassie through the shoulder and we-”

  “You were with them?”

  “I was with them, Finn and Kyle, they came with us to the B&B. We had to find somewhere to stay for the night. Kyle—he’s the one that recognised Dan.”

  “Yes, and he confronted Cassie about it—she’s his wife-”

  “The blonde bimbo?”

  “Hey!” Lina interjects. “Cassie is not a bimbo. She saved me from … from Ray and … she’s amazing. She ran him off the road when he was chasing us—he tried to kill us all.”

  “Hah!” Deacon spits. Thinking of Dan Morgan’s wife as anything other than a money-grabbing bimbo is not what he wants right now.

  “Yes, she is,” Lina insists. “She saved me and the kids and she nearly killed Saskia.”

  “Well, that’s a job I’ll have to finish. But tell me, where is Dan now?”

  “We don’t know. When we confronted Cassie about it and told her we couldn’t live with him because … because everything was his fault, he overheard and left.”

  “That’s right. So, we don’t know where he is now. It was months ago, before the winter. He could be anywhere.”

  “Yes, he could be anywhere. He just got his bag and walked out of the door and up the road.”

  “He left on foot?” Deacon asks digging for all the information he can.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “I decided to stay with Finn and Kyle, Cassie, Rick and the kids went up to a farm in the north.”

  Deacon clenches his jaw, thinking back to the summer. The memory of a bunch of people standing at the roadside, the bright flames of the burning car smashed into the digging arm of a JCB floats in his memory. As he rides past them a man looks up at him, a man dishevelled but … no! That must have been Dan Morgan. He could have had him then! Deacon clenches his fist as frustration waves over him.

  “If he went on foot, he probably hasn’t gotten very far. He’d need to be somewhere where food is easy to find—a town or village nearby probably.”

  “He’s gone, Deacon. It’s Saskia we need to be worrying about. She’s the real threat now.”

  A noise, a rumbling that breaks through the quiet of the winter morning, sounds in the distance.

  “Agreed,” Deacon says and turns to look back up the pathway and to the river’s bank. The noise intensifies.

  “What is it?” Lina asks as Deacon steps back up the path.

  He doesn’t respond, and instead climbs to the bank and looks out over the river. He recognises the sound now and looks across to the bridge and along the river to locate it—petrol engines.

  “Is that a lorry or something,” Finn asks as she joins him.

  “No,” he replies. “I think it’s a motorbike.”

  “Just one? It’s awful loud for just one, but maybe that’s because everything is so quiet.”

  “No, Finn. I think it is more than one,” Deacon replies trying to discern movement along the bridge. Woodlands cover the bank at the other side of the river, masking the wide road that leads into, and out of, the city. The noise continues to increase, its heavy thrum filling the air. A seagull squawks overhead, circles and swirls as another joins its dance.

>   Squinting into the sun, Deacon watches the bridge. ‘Longest expansion bridge in the world’, he remembers his father telling him. Not any more, the Japanese had soon put up their own and robbed England of that world record. His father had been deeply disgruntled on that day. As he peers to the far end of the bridge, towards the tolls and the block of offices, movement catches his eye. He watches as first one, then two, then a group of motorbikes appear on the bridge. He counts them. Nine in total, some with single riders, some with a passenger riding pillion. Following at the back is a van and a flat-bed truck. They ride as silhouettes against the bright blue of the sky as the noise of their engines fills the air and they move along the bridge. At the front, a cruiser, it’s handlebars modified to be almost vertical, leads. The rest are a mixture of cruisers and sports bikes. Not a biker gang then, they were too disparate for that, so perhaps just a group of survivors who knew how to ride?

  “Do you think they’ll come here?” Finn asks as she stands beside him.

  “I dunno, but we should get back.”

  “Yes, let’s get back,” Lina urges. “We’ll be safe at the pub.”

  Deacon takes a final look as the bikers reach the second pair of massive concrete pillars, pats Finn on the back, and beckons for Lina to follow him. Setting a steady pace, he runs down the path and through the trees. As they reach the first of the old streets in the town, the noise of the bikes’ engines grows louder.

  “Sounds like they’re coming into the town,” he says and picks up his pace. “C’mon, we’ll take the back roads so there’s no chance they’ll see us.”

  Chapter 5

  Jackson opens the bike up as he turns onto the main road into the town. How long had it been since he was last ‘home’? Seven, eight years? Must be. He winds the throttle back again, relishing the grunt that roars from the twin pipes and smiles. The roads are empty and he’s king of the road! Hah! Trina’s legs squeeze against his thighs and looks at her through the wing mirror. She’s smiling. She loves this just as much as he does. He smiles back at her, though his mouth is hidden beneath the bandana, and focuses again on the road. At the bottom of the hill he goes straight across the roundabout and down into the town. Nothing’s changed. Still the same old run-down market town it always was. He passes the working men’s club, then rides down the High Street with its empty Indian restaurants, charity shops and opticians. Doesn’t look like it has been looted, not like the city—that place had been ravaged. He shudders at the memory of the first days—the chaos and riots, and then the shock at how quickly it had all gone quiet; from rampaging and robbing lunatics, people stabbed to death for the bag of shopping on their arm, to the deathly still and quiet of empty streets, and the muffled barking of dogs trapped indoors. Even the barking had subsided once the imprisoned mutts had died off—starved on their chains or trapped in the living room.