“They took my emergency supplies too,” Wren replied sadly.
“Were you serious before, about heading out there on foot?” Ruby asked.
“We don’t have a choice,” Robyn replied. “You never know, we might stumble onto another vehicle somewhere, but it’s a big ask. We went along this road a couple of days ago, and it’s pretty much been gutted of anything useful. The cars had been drained of fuel. The houses had been raided. There was nothing.”
“What about food?”
Robyn looked towards the bare kitchen cupboards. “We’ve got a bit of food and drink in our backpacks. It should last us.”
“I reckon it’ll take us about three days to get back to Safe Haven on foot,” Wren said.
“You can’t be serious. The last time Tommy and I were on the road we barely managed to stay alive.”
“You were alone then. You’re with us now.”
“But what if we run into a horde? What if we run into those men? What if we run into more people like Jax?”
“We’ll deal with them.”
“What’s our alternative, Ruby?” Robyn asked. “You want to stay in a house with no windows that smells like death?”
Ruby started sobbing, and Tommy immediately began the by now familiar high-pitched nasal scream that signified he was distressed too. Ruby quickly brought her crying under control and rushed over to her brother. “It’s alright, Tommy, it’s alright,” she said, stroking his back. Tommy continued rocking back and forward for a moment until the screaming finally subsided. Ruby remained there stroking him until he returned to reading the dictionary.
Mila looked more than a little shocked. It was the first time she had witnessed Tommy’s distress. “It would be bad if that happened out there.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Ruby replied. “There are so many triggers that can cause him to erupt.”
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have a choice. We have to leave here … all of us,” Wren said. “We can’t worry about things that might happen only about things that are happening now.” She smiled and looked towards Mila.
Mila smiled back and nodded. “Ja, Wren is right.”
“Missed breakfast. Most important meal of the day. Missed breakfast. It’s a bad start. Bad start to the day to miss breakfast,” Tommy said, his eyes no longer looking towards the dictionary but gazing distantly out of the window.
“That’s okay, Tommy. You can have breakfast now.” Wren put her spear down and slid the rucksack from her shoulders. She delved inside and retrieved two bags of crisps, two Mars bars and a can of Irn-Bru. “Are you okay sharing the drink?”
“Sure. Thank you,” Ruby said gratefully as she took the food and drink over to where Tommy was sitting. Neither of them had eaten since the day before, and they stuffed whole handfuls of crisps into their mouths.
“I don’t suppose you’ve used a shotgun before have you, Ruby?” Robyn asked.
“No,” she replied, and a couple of small crisps fell from her bottom lip.
“Too bad.” Robyn reached into the side pocket of her rucksack and pulled out four shells. I’m guessing if we get to the stage where we’re relying on four shotgun shells to save us our chances aren’t all that great anyway.”
“There’s an old broom in the vehicle barn. It’s one of the few things they didn’t take. I can make it into a spear like this one,” Wren said, holding up her duct-taped weapon.
“Better than nothing, I suppose.”
Wren and Wolf disappeared out of the door again, and Mila sidled up to Robyn, pulling her a little to one side while the two siblings ate their breakfast.
“I am not sure about this plan, Robyn. Ruby is right. We could run into that army again. We could run into all sorts.”
“We’ve already been through this. We don’t have an alternative.”
“What about heading back into the city to see if we can find a car? If we were successful, we could be back in Safe Haven this afternoon, yes?”
“That’s a big if, Mila. Heading back into the city is definitely out. We only just escaped last time. And finding a working vehicle, with fuel, that’s going to start without a push because of a dry battery? It’s too much of a long shot.”
“I suppose you are right.”
“Look, we’ll do what we always do. We’ll keep our eyes peeled, run when we can and fight when we have to.”
The corners of Mila’s lips turned up. “I forgot how much of a bad asshole you have become.”
“Err … I think you mean badass.”
“Meh. Either is good with me,” Mila said with a broad grin on her face.
“Cheeky c—”
“Ja, ja, ja. Cheeky cow, I know. You really need to come up with a new insult.”
“Oh trust me; I’ve got plenty, I was just trying to keep it clean.” The two friends laughed again; then Mila went quiet and a sad expression crept onto her face. “What is it?”
“Life has not been good for us since we left the hospital. I am worried that we have left our best times behind us.”
Robyn pulled Mila around to face her. “Hey, look, I don’t want you getting all down again. I need you. We need you. The only way we’re going to make this is if we’re all at the top of our game.”
“The top of our game? Robyn, look around you. Look at what happened here. Look—”
“My sister’s right.” Mila and Robyn turned suddenly to see Wren at the door.
“She told me about what you two had been through together. I bet it wasn’t easy, but I survived out here alone. I kept going, and I kept fighting because I was sure that something would happen at some point that would make my life better. I felt it in my gut. And I was right, things did get better. I went to Safe Haven, then I found Bobbi again, and now we’re back together with you. It’s the easiest thing in the world to let your doubts eat away at you, to convince you that things are only going to get worse and worse.” She leaned the sweeping brush up against the wall and walked across to where they were standing. “But I prefer to look at the positives.”
“Positives?” Mila asked.
“We’re here, still standing. We’ve got weapons, we’ve got food, and we’ve got a plan. That’s more than any of these poor people have got,” she said, gesturing to the bloody stains on the floor.
“Wren’s right. Look at what we did together back in Inverness,” Robyn added. “How many people could have done what we did? We’re going to be fine if we all stick together. Trust me.”
Mila stared into Robyn’s eyes then Wren’s. She could tell that both of them believed every word they said and a small flame of hope ignited inside her.
Wolf, who had remained close to the open door while the conversation was going on, began to growl, and all eyes apart from Tommy’s shot towards him. Wren, Robyn and Mila immediately readied their weapons. The rain had begun to subside, but the wind still howled across the courtyard. Wren stepped out into the elements fully expecting to see a group of infected charging towards her.
“Getting a bit jumpy aren’t you, boy?” she said with half a smile on her face as she glanced around the empty yard. Wolf let out a bark this time, and Wren’s brow furrowed.
“What’s wrong with him?” Robyn asked as she and Mila stood in the doorway.
“I dunno, but it’s not like him. He doesn’t just bark for no reason.”
“Stille!” Mila ordered and angled her head slightly. “It is the same sound from earlier. It is a drone.”
All three girls looked up towards the sky. “I don’t see anything,” Wren said.
“It sounds as though it is coming from that direction,” Mila said, pointing north.
“Oh, you mean the direction we need to go? That’s handy,” Robyn replied. “So, what do we do?”
“We wait a little while,” Wren replied. “We go inside, shut the door and wait.” She looked beyond Robyn and Mila to see Ruby standing behind them with a worried look on her face. “Don’t worry. It can’t stay up there
forever. As soon as the coast is clear, we’ll set off.”
They all walked back into the kitchen and sat on the countertops. For a few moments, none of them spoke. It was Ruby who eventually broke the silence. “They’re looking for us, aren’t they?”
“Don't be silly. What reason would they have to be looking for us?” Wren asked.
“Well, who else would they be searching for?”
The question hung in the air as they all just listened to the sound of the motor in the distance. Wren looked down at Wolf, and he let out a small whine. “Don’t worry, boy. I know just how you feel.”
CHAPTER 7
It was an hour later when they set off from the house. The rain had stopped completely, and as they walked along the A9, they were protected from the worst of the wind by the woodland on either side of the road. Nobody was in the mood to make polite conversation; instead, they kept their ears and eyes open, listening and watching for any signs of danger.
Wren and Wolf dropped back a little to walk with Ruby and Tommy. “Will he be okay walking this kind of distance?”
“Tommy will do whatever I ask him to. If I said start walking in a straight line, he wouldn’t stop until I told him to.”
Wren looked across towards Tommy whose head was raised at a slight angle. His left hand was resting against his stomach while his right slowly danced up and down. “We’re going to stop at Rogie Falls tonight. Bobbi says that there’s an equipment shed there that will give us some shelter.”
“That’s quite a way.”
“Yeah, and we’ll be covering a lot more than that tomorrow.”
“Well, we’re not going to hold you back if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I wasn't asking anything; I was just telling you. We’re all working together here, you don’t need to be so defensive.”
Ruby let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s just people have always treated my brother as a handicap.”
“I’d never do that.”
“I know. You were the ones who looked out for us both. Old habits I guess.”
“I understand. It must be hard.”
“It is, and it isn’t. He’s the sweetest brother anyone could ask for. He’s incredibly bright. He always does what I ask, and he’s actually got a pretty good sense of humour when he’s relaxed.”
“Yeah, well, it might be a while before any of us are relaxing,” Wren replied, looking at her spear and then across at Ruby’s almost identical weapon.
“You can say that again. So what are we, the last line of defence?” she asked, smiling.
“Something like that.”
The group continued for the best part of an hour. Occasionally they would stop and search the skies, certain that they had heard a distant drone. The feeling they were being watched was constant, but despite their best efforts to spot something or someone observing them, they couldn’t.
Suddenly, the sound of distant gunfire cut through the whistling wind. “Oh shit! Where the hell is that coming from?” Robyn cried.
A scream rose in the back of Tommy’s throat, and Wolf’s coat bristled as he began to growl. His eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“What should we do?” Ruby asked.
“RUUUN!” It was a man’s voice, and it had the opposite effect to what he had hoped. They all froze for a second as they saw him appear around a bend in the road ahead and sprint towards them. His head kept flicking back to look over his shoulder. Instinct finally kicked in, and Robyn, Wren and Mila brought their weapons up. The man was young, good looking, and maybe twenty or so. His lip was bleeding, there was a thin red trickle running down from above his right eye, and a crimson circle decorated his pale blue T-shirt just above the chest.
Tommy’s alarmed scream was scaling higher, and Ruby desperately tried to calm him, but it was no good. “Don’t take another step,” Robyn ordered, bringing the sight window of the bow up to her eye.
Reluctantly, the young man skidded to a stop and threw his hands into the air; he looked towards Tommy for a brief moment then turned his attention to Robyn. “Please! I don’t think they’re that far behind me. They’ll get us all if we don’t move.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know who they are exactly. They invaded my town. They captured me and a few others. They said they needed workers. Some of us managed to escape earlier this morning, but they tracked us down and we all split up.” He threw another nervous look back in the direction he’d come from.
“They have vehicles, and you have managed to outrun them?” Mila asked suspiciously.
“No. We escaped cross country. About a dozen of them came after us on foot. They’ve got a drone too. I think I’ve managed to avoid it so far, but I’m guessing those shots we just heard mean that they’ve found some of my friends. I didn’t know where I was going, but then I found this road and saw signs. I thought if I could get to Inverness, then I’d be safe, and they wouldn’t carry on looking for me. Please, we need to get out of here.”
Over Tommy’s cries, the sound of a nearing drone could be heard once more.
“I think we should get off the road, yes?” Mila said.
“Okay, but stay ahead of us and don’t try anything,” Robyn said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the stranger.
The seven of them turned left and ran into the trees. It was not long before the forest became much denser and harder to traverse, but the canopy hid them well from the drone. Tommy gradually quieted as the group made their way further into the woods. The sound of the drone drifted away to nothingness, but still they kept on moving.
“Stop! I need to stop,” Ruby said after the group had been running for ten minutes.”
“I really don’t think we should be stopping yet,” the man replied.
“Okay, can we slow down at least?”
The group slowed and, instead of relying on speed, changed direction multiple times to make tracking less straightforward. “We stop here,” Robyn said, raising her bow once more and aiming it at the young man.
He threw his hands up again. “Please. I don’t mean you any harm. I just wanted to get away from them. What they did, it was…” A look of sadness and disbelief swept over his face.
“Where was your town?” Wren asked.
“Golspie.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
“He’s lying,” Wren said and moved forward with her spear raised.
“Please! Please, I’m not lying. Why would I lie?”
“Golspie’s on the coast just north of here. That army is already up as high as Wick. Are you telling me they just forgot to visit your town?”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” He paused for a moment to watch Tommy and Ruby go lean against a tree. The troubled boy was silent now, but his fingers and face still twitched frantically. “We’d heard mutterings about other towns along the coast. We used to trade with Brora, and they hadn’t been hit either. We’d been told it was motorcycle gangs, not a whole bloody army.”
Robyn, Wren and Mila all looked towards one another. What he was saying had the ring of truth to it. “So, they invaded your town and then what?” Wren pressed.
“It was a massacre. We had a few weapons to deal with the infected but nothing on the scale that these people had. Anybody who tried to fight was killed, and the same went for anyone they were with. Those who surrendered got rounded up. I heard two of the soldiers talking about plans being brought forward and the more workers they could get the happier Olsen would be.”
“Who’s Olsen?”
“I’ve got no idea. I’m guessing the one who runs it all. Anyway, we got rounded up and put onto these trucks. A lot of people were put in chains, but they ran out. They said they’d have to make some more when they got back to base.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Wren said. “When they invade a town, they take it over, they don’t ransack it and head back home,” Wren said, still holding her spear tightly.
“I’m tel
ling you the truth. Golspie was never exactly the centre of the universe. It’s a small place with little in the way of resources.”
“You don’t sound like you’re from this part of the world.”
“I’m from London. My parents moved up here a few years ago.”
“Were your parents ... were they among the—”
“No. They died in a car crash two years back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Better to go suddenly than live through this.”
There was a pause of a few seconds as the magnitude of the young man’s words sunk in. “So, what’s your name?” Robyn asked, lowering her bow.
“Josh.”
“Well, Josh, that was quite an entrance you made.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“We should start moving again, yes?” Mila said.
Ruby guided Tommy across to join them. His fingers still tapped the air, and his eyes looked everywhere but towards the stranger; however, for the time being, he was silent.
“Do you have anywhere to go?” Robyn asked.
Josh looked at her then towards the others. “Golspie wasn’t much, but my life was in that town. Everything I owned, everybody I knew. I’ve got nothing now.”
“Well, we’re heading somewhere that can—”
“Bobbi!” Wren’s eyes flashed with anger for a moment. “Can I have a word with you?” She took hold of her sister’s arm and guided her away with Wolf following faithfully by her side. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she spun around to face her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You heard him. He’s got no one. He’s got nowhere to live. What do you want to do, just leave him out here to fend for himself?”
“Firstly, this isn’t a lost puppy we’re talking about. I lived by myself for months. Secondly, we’ve just met him. He could be a raging psychopath for all we know. Thirdly, if those people are after him, it puts a huge target on our back too.”
“Okay, one, we were about to take a load of homeless strangers back to Safe Haven if they’d survived long enough. Two, I’m getting good at sussing out psychopaths now, and I’m pretty certain he’s a zero on the psycho scale. And three, whether we’re with him or not with him there’ll be a target on our back. If that army stumbles across us do you think they’re just going to let us go because he’s not with us?”
The End of Everything | Book 9 | The End of Everything Page 5
