Afterlight

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘It was an accident.’ Leona turned to her. ‘Wasn’t it?’

  Martha shook her head. ‘We don’t know for sure, love,’ she replied quietly. ‘But I found things in his pockets, things he kept.’

  ‘What things?’

  Alice Harton had heard enough. ‘Martha! You bitch! You fucking traitor!’

  Martha turned back towards the others. ‘I found things, Alice! I found things amongst Valérie’s clothes! Things that belonged to the girls!’

  There was another ripple of consternation. Howard’s gun dipped slightly.

  ‘Yeah? Oh . . . just now? That’s bloody convenient!’ replied Alice.

  ‘No.’ Martha shook her head, ashamed. ‘No, it was days ago!’

  ‘You never said anything. You’re a liar!’

  ‘I was afraid!’ replied Martha. Her voice wobbled. ‘I was afraid! I didn’t want to believe it was him . . . and not Walter! I didn’t want—’

  ‘What things did you find?’ called out Howard.

  Martha’s voice quavered and broke. ‘Hannah’s hair!’ she sobbed. ‘Natasha’s pants!’

  Leona saw Howard’s eyes widen, his bushy white eyebrows locked angrily. ‘Her underwear?’

  Martha nodded. ‘He kept them . . . like a trophy.’

  Howard stared at her in silence, the gun trembling, slowly lowering.

  ‘And there was blood on them!’ she continued, her words broken up by sobs and her breath hitching. ‘He hurt her, he killed her! And then he blamed Walter!’

  ‘You can’t believe her!’ snapped Alice. ‘It’s not true! She’s making this up!’

  ‘Fuck this!’ shouted Howard. He turned round, pushed past Alice, and disappeared into the crowd.

  Leona grasped one of Martha’s heaving shoulders. ‘You just said he had Hannah’s hair on him?’

  She nodded. ‘A . . . a lock . . . and . . . and one of her ribbons.’

  ‘Are you saying he killed my Hannah? He killed her?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know, love. I . . . I just don’t know.’

  ‘What? Is he a . . . is he a child molester? Is that what he is?’

  She looked at Leona through streaming eyes. ‘I . . . I think we let a monster in.’ Her lips quivered and she heaved in a shaky breath. ‘An’ . . . an’ he made us think it was . . . it was p-poor Walter.’

  The walkway was ringing with footsteps. Leona felt Adam’s hand press the small of her back.

  ‘Looks like they’re folding over there. Let’s take advantage of that and go get this fella.’

  She nodded, leading the way across. As they approached the far side, Leona could see the uncertainty in Alice’s eyes. She came to a halt in front of the woman. ‘You’ve always been a vicious bitch, haven’t you?’ whispered Leona. ‘Always the one moaning, bitching, causing trouble.’

  Alice’s mouth hung half open.

  ‘What, not saying anything this time?’

  Her mouth still hung open, her eyes seemed to be searching the far off horizon for inspiration.

  ‘Let me guess, you were hoping you could spread your legs for Latoc? Become the queen to his king? Become the queen bee here? Was that it?’

  Alice looked at Martha. ‘I . . . I . . . just wanted . . . what was best for us all. That’s all I ever—’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘It was for the children’s sake, Leona. For Hannah’s sake that I . . . that I thought Walt—’

  Leona slapped her face hard. The crack of palm on cheek echoed between the platforms like a brittle gunshot.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Leona whispered through clenched teeth. ‘Don’t you fucking dare say another word.’ She pushed past her and finally stepped onto the firm footing of the compression platform’s main deck. There was a commotion up ahead through the crowd. She saw Howard and William strong-arming Valérie Latoc towards them.

  ‘That’s the guy, is it?’ asked Walfield.

  Leona nodded. ‘Yes.’

  They wrestled him through the crowd on the deck, growing in numbers now as the curious and the less loyal made their way across the walkway in the wake of the soldiers to see what was going on. Howard and William stopped in front of Leona, Valérie held between them in an armlock.

  ‘So, did you do it?’ asked Howard.

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Valérie. ‘I would never harm a child.’

  ‘Why did you have those things in your pockets?’ snapped Martha.

  Valérie shrugged. ‘I do not understand.’ He pulled the pockets of his trousers inside out. ‘I have nothing in my pockets. Martha, why are you saying these things?’

  ‘Where is he bunked?’ asked Leona.

  ‘The plant monitoring suite on the top floor,’ said Howard.

  ‘Someone search it,’ ordered Leona. Howard nodded, released his grasp on Latoc and pushed his way back through the crowd towards the external steps.

  ‘I’m not telling a lie,’ said Martha.

  Leona’s gaze remained on the man. ‘I know, Martha. Even if Howard finds nothing . . . he’s still going.’

  She took a step towards him. ‘So, is he going to find something?’

  Latoc looked uneasy, his eyes darting from one armed solider to the next. Then to Leona. ‘I never touched Hannah. I promise you.’

  Leona suddenly buried her face in her hands. The thought of what might, or might not, have been the experience of Hannah’s last few minutes was too much for her. She felt Martha’s arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m okay . . .’ she said, rubbing away tears that she didn’t want to share with everyone else. ‘I’m okay.’

  Adam took over. ‘What about this other girl?’

  Latoc hesitated. ‘The other girl?’

  ‘What are we going to find?’ Adam turned to Martha. ‘You found those things. What did you do with them?’

  ‘I . . . I put them back where I found them. I was too s-scared to do anyth—I just didn’t want to believe—’

  Adam raised a hand to hush her and turned back to Latoc. ‘So, chances are your little trophies are still up there somewhere.’

  Valérie’s calm composure slipped for a moment. He dropped his head. ‘I never touched Hannah. She was an angel. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’ asked Leona, her hands dropping away from her face. ‘But WHAT?’

  ‘The other one . . . I . . . she . . . I just wanted to be . . .

  ‘Wanted to be what?’

  ‘Close.’

  “‘Wanted to be CLOSE”. What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  From towards the rear of the gathered knot of people Denise Bingham sobbed noisily.

  ‘To hold her . . . that is all. Just to hold her. The Lord told me to—’

  ‘Don’t do that!’ snapped Leona. ‘Don’t you dare justify what you did with a God-told-me-so!’

  ‘He is love. God is love. I am love . . . the physical form of love . . . that is love, too, yes?’

  ‘Did you hurt her? Did you kill her?’

  He shook his head. ‘No . . . I . . . I just wanted to hold her. She was so beautiful. You know? That is all. Just to hold her and pray with her. But she tripped and hit her head—’

  ‘Oh, that sounds like bollocks,’ grumbled Walfield. ‘Sounds like a load of shit, already.’

  Leona grabbed a fistful of Latoc’s shirt. ‘Is that how it went with Hannah? You just wanted to hold her? And what? She tripped? Hit her head? Is that it?’

  ‘Lee,’ said Adam, placing a hand on her arm.

  ‘What?’ she replied over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off Latoc.

  ‘We need some evidence, right? We can’t just go on this. Why don’t we see what’s up in his rooms?’

  Leona turned round. Between Brooks and Walfield she saw William was loosely holding the gun Howard had been aiming down the walkway at them moments ago. She quickly pushed through and snatched the gun out of his hands.

  Adam stood in her way. ‘Leona? What’re you doing?’

  ‘Out of
my way!’ she barked, pushing him aside and jamming the barrel of the gun into Latoc’s ribs. ‘MOVE!’

  He stepped uncertainly backwards.

  She prodded him across the deck, the crowd parting either side of them.

  ‘You want me to leave?’ asked Latoc. ‘If that is what you wish, then I—’

  She prodded him hard again, Latoc taking faltering steps backwards until his backside bumped up against a safety rail.

  ‘Now fucking climb it.’

  He turned round to look at the railing, the smooth grey sea eighty feet below. He shook his head defiantly. ‘Leona, anger is the devil’s way in to your soul. Do you not see that? You are letting him in. I know you are better than—’

  ‘CLIMB OVER IT!’

  He remained rooted to the spot. Leona aimed the barrel of the gun at his face and let her finger slide onto the trigger.

  ‘D-don’t,’ he whispered. She saw another crack in his calm demeanour, his eyes narrowing into a wince.

  She aimed the gun a couple of inches to the left and pulled the trigger. The shot passed his head and echoed out across the stillness on the deck. He cowered at the deafening sound next to his ear.

  ‘CLIMB!’

  Latoc hesitantly swung a leg over the safety barrier, then the other, eased himself over the rail and stood on the narrow lip of rusty metal beyond, one hand tightly holding the upper bar, his other arm, with its bandaged hand, wrapped around the stanchion.

  Adam pushed his way through the crowd towards them. ‘Leona, we can’t do this just on someone’s say-so!’

  She ignored him. ‘You . . .’ she started, her voice faltering to nothing but a croak. She hawked up and spat on the deck by Latoc’s feet. ‘People like you,’ she continued. ‘Takers. You take what you want, and fuck anyone else.’

  She swung her aim back onto his face. ‘People like you, shit like you, took my father, took my daughter, took my brother, took . . . me.’ She found herself trembling, her voice robbed of the brittle force of righteous vengeance. Now it was little more than a fluttering whisper. ‘Takers . . . takers . . . takers. Fucking parasites. People like you,’ she said, leaning forward and prodding the muzzle against his cheek, ‘people like you fucked the whole world up; sucked it dry until everything collapsed.’

  Brooks put a hand on her arm. ‘Leona.’

  She shook it off, her eyes still on Valérie Latoc. ‘You. I hate men like you. Pricks . . . fucking selfish pricks.’

  Valérie shook his head and smiled. Some sense of his calm composure rebuilt one more time. ‘You have me all wrong, Leona. I am not like other—’

  ‘NOW LET GO OF THE RAIL!’ she screamed. She hated the sound of her voice. It sounded like someone else. High-pitched and shrill and desperate.

  Latoc’s eyes dipped and the smile slipped away. ‘I . . . I am human. I have human weaknesses. That is why the Lord came to me. Because, yes . . . I am . . . I was the lowest form of life, once. I was hated. I . . .’ He looked down in shame. ‘I was in prison for this kind of thing. I was spat at before the crash. I know what it is to be despised, Leona.’ He looked up at her again. ‘But He came to someone like me to show us all that anyone can be forgiven. Anyone!’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, you want me to forgive you? Is that it?’

  ‘You . . . I see in you the strength to . . . to forgive.’

  ‘Just SHUT UP!’ she snapped at him. ‘Shut up!’

  Adam tried again. ‘Leona,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘C’mon, Lee, this isn’t you. You can’t execute this man just on someone’s say-so. Give me the bloody gun.’

  ‘Leona,’ said Latoc, ‘this place, these rigs . . . this is a sacred place. It is the beginning.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was sent here. Do you see? Sent here. This place is the ark. I was sent here for a purpose. I—’

  ‘Is that the kind of crap you’ve been telling them?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘This is a . . . what? A Noah’s ark?!’

  ‘Yes,’ a woman called out from behind him. Leona turned round to see her mother pushing her way to the front. ‘That’s exactly the crap he’s been peddling. That we’re special because we’re going to be the last humans in the world.’

  She joined Leona beside the railing. ‘But I think all he was really after was his own little brothel.’

  ‘No, that is not it, Jennifer,’ said Latoc quickly. ‘You have made a very special place here. God sees that. A very special place. God is grateful for all that you did.’

  ‘God’s grateful is He? Oh, yeah, God’s been a really nice guy. Was it God’s call that Walter be killed?’ She turned round to look at the others. ‘Or did you all have a hand in it?’

  The crowd shuffled uneasily under her gaze.

  Adam slowly extended a hand towards Leona. ‘This isn’t the right way to deal with this. Trust me, it’ll haunt you. Give me the gun.’

  She turned to look at him and saw in his eyes that he was talking from experience.

  ‘Seriously.’ He rested a hand on the gun’s still-warm barrel. ‘Don’t do this.’

  They heard the sound of a door swinging shut and the clang of feet on the metal rungs of the stairs. All eyes drifted up and watched Howard hasten his way down, wheezing and puffing at the bottom of each flight. He was holding something in his hands.

  ‘Leona, wait, I’ve got—’ he called out from the top of the last flight of steps, the words were pulled away by the wind. Finally, he made his way across the deck, pushing through the crowd towards her, finally spotting Jenny and Leona by the railing. For a moment he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  He’d told her to wait. That meant he must have found something that mitigated the circumstances. She felt the resolve to kill without mercy begin to ebb away. Her hands loosened their grip on the shotgun and she let Adam silently relieve her of it. She turned towards the sweating, gasping old man beside her. ‘Howard, what did you find?’

  He opened his left hand. ‘Martha was right.’

  She saw a single loop of blonde hair in his fleshy palm. She reached out and touched it with the tip of her finger. The right texture. She picked it up and held the lock of hair to her nose. Her smell.

  Hannah.

  Unmistakably Hannah.

  ‘NO! I . . . I did not t-touch her!’ said Latoc. She turned to him and saw his eyes were wide with fear, the last vestige of composure torn from his face like a cheap plastic Halloween mask. ‘Understand . . . God told me I could have the other one . . . Natasha. But not Hannah! He s-said I could have—’

  ‘Oh, fuck off!’ said Leona, lifting a booted foot off the deck and kicking his groin through the gap between the railings. Both his feet lost purchase on the narrow lip of metal and he flapped desperately with his hands to keep hold of the railing. His unbandaged hand found the vertical stanchion, sliding down the pitted metal, cheese-grating the skin of his hand on the way down. The other arm lost its hold completely; the hand swathed in layers of bandaging gave him little more than a mittened hook to grasp with. He hung there for a moment, bloodied and scraped, wrapped tightly around the base of the stanchion, the rusting post creaking perilously with his weight. He swung, knuckles and sinews in his hand bulging as he clung on desperately. The bandaged hand flapped around the pole, trying ineffectually to get a purchase on it, too.

  ‘PLEEEAASSE!!’ he screamed, his long Jesus-like locks flickering and dancing in the updraught.

  ‘My daughter told you to fuck off,’ hissed Jenny, delivering a swift kick at his fingers.

  Valérie Latoc’s wide-eyed face and his bloody hand disappeared from sight.

  Chapter 80

  10 years AC

  ‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea

  I look at this place and I see something very different to the dome. I don’t see floodlights piercing the night sky. Instead I see candles made from animal fat. I don’t see London’s lifeless horizon of glass tower blocks. Instead I see the North Sea. I don’t hear the thudding beat of a boo
m-box, I hear the soft murmur of the tide. In the evenings I hear the strumming of a guitar, snatches of conversation from open portholes, the giggle of children’s voices.

  And chickens, lots of the stupid little things.

  What I see when I look around is a time before the oil age, before the steam age, even. This is what they’ve built out here, a life that I guess wouldn’t look out of place in the middle ages. Minus the ignorance, minus the superstitions, minus the witch burnings.

  Who would have thought you could actually turn five rusting gas platforms into a self-sustaining village? They managed it - Jennifer Sutherland and her family and followers.

  I used to miss the pre-crash world with its conveniences and distractions. I used to miss a million and one little things during those years we were at the dome. But now I’ve seen this place, I don’t miss that dead world any more. I think this is what the future should look like. Not these ugly rigs, but the plants, the chickens, the animal-fat candles. Life without taking endlessly.

  There were a few painful days after we arrived - bridges needed to be rebuilt. These people were so utterly divided by that mad bastard. About a third of them had completely bought into his preaching and another third had joined him, not wanting to be left in the minority. I wonder, if we’d not arrived when we did, whether the first two thirds might eventually have turned on the last - the non-believers.

  Mankind has plenty of form with that sort of thing.

  There are wounds that are going to take years to heal. A lot of work for Jenny Sutherland. There was also the news that her lad was gone. Truth be told, I think it hasn’t sunk in yet, or maybe she’d come to terms with never seeing either of them again and to have at least one of her children back was a blessing.

  There was also news for the big woman, what’s her name? Martha. News that her son is with Maxwell’s little army. That has certainly focused minds to pull together again: the knowledge that something worse than the mad priest is out there and will turn up one day soon.

  I look at both the Sutherland women and I’m amazed at their bloody fortitude. Mother and daughter, natural survivors . . . tough buggers, the pair of them. It does make me wonder whether true ‘toughness’, ‘true grit’ isn’t the size of the muscles you can bench-press out of your body, or how many miles you can jog with eighty pounds of field kit strapped to your back, or how big a gun you can hold in your hands.