“Listen!” Wren ordered.
A buzzing sound gradually began to get louder. “Scheisse!” Mila hissed.
“We need to head for the trees,” Wren said.
“What? The trees where the creepy knife-wielding maniacs might be watching us?” Robyn cried.
“Yeah.”
“She’s right,” said Josh. “That’s a drone. If they spot us, we’re screwed.”
“Crap,” Robyn replied. “Everybody stick together and keep your eyes peeled.”
They left the road and sprinted towards the dense woodland. Now, as well as casting fearful glances in their direction of travel, they looked towards the grey sky too expecting to see the drone that could give away their location to the vast army that was obviously still hunting for Josh. Even after reaching the tree line, they carried on running for a few metres until they were well and truly out of sight. They stopped again, each leaning up against a trunk until they caught their breath.
“I can still hear it,” Mila said. “It’s getting closer.”
“They won’t see us in here,” Josh said. They were in the midst of a dense growth of pine trees and on a sunny day it would have been dark. This was not a sunny day.
Wren went over to where Ruby and Tommy were standing. Tommy’s fingers were still frantically typing away until she spoke to him. “You saved us, Tommy. Thank you.”
He paused, and even though his eyes were looking up towards the tree branches, a momentary grin appeared on his face before disappearing again just as quickly. “What do you mean?” Robyn said, walking across to join them.
“Talking about the Wright brothers was his way of telling us about the drone. He wanted us to look up.”
“So it’s like a code?”
“Kind of.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out,” Ruby said.
“When you’re running for your life, it’s easy to miss things,” Robyn replied.
“Huh, yeah. I suppose.”
“Stille!” Mila said as the noise of the drone got louder. But as the others looked towards her, they realised that wasn’t what she was concerned about.
Wolf sat bolt upright staring deep into the forest. A low growl started in the back of his throat. “What is it, boy?” He stood slowly and took two steps forward. “Wolf, stay!” Wren said. He reluctantly placed his rear back on the ground while Robyn and Josh both raised their weapons in the direction the German Shepherd was looking.
“Today’s turning out so much better than yesterday, don’t you think?” Robyn said, scanning the woods for movement.
“It sounds like it’s hovering,” Wren said.
“The drone’s not what I’m worried about right now,” Robyn said, suddenly looking in another direction. “I think they’re trying to surround us.”
“Who?” Wren asked, going to stand by her sister’s side. A few seconds passed before she saw them too. “Oh crap.” She could see multiple shadowy figures about a hundred metres ahead.
“What should we do?” Mila asked.
“Well, we can’t go back out there while that drone’s around, can we?” Robyn replied. “I say we stay put for the time being. If they come for us, we fight. If they don’t, then the second we can’t hear that drone anymore we make a run for it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Wren said, raising her spear. They spread out, fixing their stares on the shadowy shapes. Suddenly Wolf charged into the forest. “Nooo!” The normally faithful German Shepherd did not heed his mistress’s call. “Damn it, Wolf!” She began to sprint after him.
“Wren no!” Robyn shouted, but it was too late. “Silly cow!” She lowered her bow and sprinted after her sister. “Stay here,” she called back to the others.
Mila, Josh and Ruby huddled closer together. Ruby dragged Tommy with her who began to groan as his head nodded back and forth rhythmically.
✽ ✽ ✽
Moving figures continued to flash between the trees further ahead as Wren desperately tried to catch up with her dog. Her fear of a long pursuit was soon put to rest, though, as a man with a rifle stepped out from behind the trunk of a thick pine.
He raised it and fired. The crack echoed around the entire forest, and Wren’s heart stopped, terrified that she would see Wolf fall to the forest floor. Instead, the German Shepherd pounced. His powerful back legs launched his muscular frame like a rocket straight towards its target. The rifle went off again as man and beast collapsed to the ground in frenzied battle. Wolf sounded rabid as he tore at the man. Even from several metres away, the rifleman’s screams were deafening as he rolled and writhed on the ground. The animal’s fearsome growls made him sound more like some terrifying creature of legend than a pet, and even when Wren arrived on the scene, the relentless attack did not stop.
The victim shouted and shrieked and kicked and punched but failed to make contact with the vicious beast as it fought to protect its pack. “Get it off me. Get it off me!” came the cry from the man who was now coiled on the ground, desperately trying to shield his face from the attack.
Behind, the sound of the drone was gradually diminishing again. Robyn’s feet came to a skidding stop, and she raised her bow, aiming it directly towards Wolf’s victim just in case there were any surprises in store. “Enough Wolf!” Wren commanded and rushed forward, snatching the rifle up off the ground, while the man continued to lie there shielding himself.
“Please help me.” The immediate panic had left the rifleman’s voice, and although broken and on the verge of tears, it was obvious it had a soft timbre and was from someone who was well-spoken.
Wolf finally relented and backed away. Robyn kept her bow raised and panned it around, expecting an attack from another direction at any minute. Wren leaned the rifle against a tree, making sure it was well out of reach of its owner.
“Call your gang off. Let us walk out of here, and you can get some treatment for that. If you don’t, I’ll make sure your arm is the last of your worries,” Wren said, pointing her spear down towards him.
“Please. It hurts.”
Wren moved closer to the figure to see he was a man in his fifties. She had come across all kinds of people since leaving Edinburgh, and she knew not to judge a book by its cover, but he did not look like the kind of thug who would slit someone’s throat and fire upon strangers. “Who are you?”
“Please, I need to get my arm seen to.”
Wren tentatively took a step closer towards him, still holding the spear firmly in her hands. On closer inspection, the wound did not seem as bad as she first thought it was. “You’ll live … as long as we walk out of here with no more trouble.”
“Go. Please go.”
Mila, Josh, Ruby and Tommy finally joined them. Mila still had her swords drawn and was scanning the treescape looking for any more signs of trouble. “Who are you people?” Wren asked.
“Wren, what the hell are you doing?” Robyn demanded. “He said we could go, now let’s just get the hell out of here.”
The man continued to flail on the ground. “How come your people aren’t coming to the rescue of their fearless leader? I mean, just from what I’ve seen, you must outnumber us about two to one.”
“Wren? Let’s go.”
“Something’s not right here,” Wren said, looking back towards her sister.
“Who cares? Seriously, who gives a toss? Let’s get out of here. It’s not the time to start playing Miss Marple.”
“Please go.” It was a woman’s voice. Wren could just see the side of her head as it peeked out from behind a tree.
Wren turned to look at Robyn then Josh. “Lower your weapons.”
Josh looked at her for a second then did as he was asked. Robyn let out a puff of frustration but eventually did the same. “I really hope you know what you’re doing.”
“He had a rifle trained on us at close range. If he’d have wanted to kill us, we’d be dead.”
“It … it fires blanks,” the man on the ground said, doing his best not to start sobbin
g from the pain.
“Blanks?”
The woman who was hiding finally broke cover from the tree and ran towards the wounded figure. Robyn raised her bow again for a brief moment, but when she saw that the woman was unarmed, dishevelled looking and slightly overweight, she deemed her not to be the threat she had anticipated. “Dad!” the woman cried as she knelt down beside him.
“Who are you?” Wren asked again.
“Can I please get my dad’s wound cleaned and dressed?”
“I want to see the rest of your people out in the open, no tricks.”
“Everybody come out,” the woman ordered.
Slowly the figures began to emerge from the trees until all ten lined up behind her and the prone figure. They carried a wide array of weapons ranging from shiny swords to branches that had been carved into rough approximations of spears.
“Who the hell are you people?” It was Robyn who asked this time.
“Look, if you let me get my dad’s wound dressed, I’ll tell you.”
Robyn, Wren and Mila looked towards one another. “Okay,” Robyn replied, “but no funny business.”
“I assure you, all I want to do is help my dad.” The woman helped her father to his feet, and he hugged her tightly with his good arm.
Wren went across to the tree where she had left the rifle. “What sort of people have a gun that fires blanks?”
The man turned back to look at her. “Actors, dear. Actors are the kind of people who have a gun that fires blanks.”
CHAPTER 10
Wren and the rest of the group remained vigilant as they followed the others through the forest. It was not long before they arrived at an encampment. Robyn and Mila looked at each other “Déjà vu anyone?” Robyn said.
“What do you mean?” Wren asked.
“We came across a place like this in the Cairngorms when we were travelling north.” Taut lengths of barbed wire were stretched out between the trees. There was a vertical gap of just a few inches between each one, and the homemade security fence stood over six feet high. A black wrought iron gate that looked like it belonged in a graveyard stood at a similar height. Sharp metal spikes on top ensured no one or nothing would climb over without causing themselves serious injury. The frame for the gate was made from the kind of sturdy fence posts one might see in a farmer’s field.
Inside the small compound were more than a dozen tents. Scattered between them were lidded storage crates and in the centre was an old-fashioned solid fuel stove. A sturdy-looking canopy had been constructed around it, and nearby there was the sound of running water.
On entering, there was a flurry of activity as people ran into tents for bandages and ointments. Someone else placed a large pot on the stove while the woman guided her father over to a chair underneath the canopy. She removed his shirt and, almost on cue, another woman handed her a bottle of alcohol and some cotton wool.
“That’s quite an attack dog you’ve got there,” she said, dousing the cotton wool and pressing it against her father’s wound.
“Owww!”
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“It feels bad,” her father replied.
“We’ll get it cleaned up and give you some antibiotics. You’ll be fine.”
“Wolf doesn’t really like it when people start pointing guns in my direction. He’s protective that way,” Wren said.
The woman paused for a moment and looked up towards her. “Yeah, well, we were hoping you’d just get the message and go.”
“Not the social types then?” Robyn said.
“We’re just trying to survive like everybody else.”
“But why out here?” Wren asked.
“You think this was our first choice?”
“There are lots of houses out there.”
“Finish this off, will you?” she said to the woman who had brought her the cotton wool before rinsing her hands with a little more alcohol and wiping them off on her jeans. “Yeah, there are lots of houses out there. And there are lots of people who want whatever you’ve got. Since all this started, we’ve been run out of two places. Seems to me that if you have a fixed abode, someone is always going to be knocking on your door. There were twenty-four of us when the outbreak began. We’re half that number now. But since we moved here, we haven’t run into anyone else … until today.”
“How did you put this place together?” Wren asked.
The woman smiled. “See that rough-looking bugger over there?” she said, pointing to a figure who stood as high as the surrounding fence and was as wide as a rugby prop forward. “Best construction manager in the business. The one next to him is a set design genius. They’ve worked in theatre, film … we all have for that matter, but if you want something building, they’re the guys to do it.”
“But how did you get all the stuff up here?”
“Up until a few days ago, we had two Luton vans. We used to be a touring company, you see. Bit of a comedown from what we’d all done in the past, but gigging schools, theatres and community centres beat being conscripted. People always need entertainment and education.” A distant smile appeared on her face for a moment before vanishing again.
“And what happened a few days ago?”
“Well, despite being pretty well stocked for food and supplies, with winter coming, we decided we should try to get a few more bits and pieces. There are lots of small hamlets … clachans I think you call them up here. We’ve had quite a lot of luck with them. The road gangs seem to stick to the villages and towns. Well, we were in one the other day that had a small school. There were still dozens of tins of food in there from before. Anyway, we were loading up and the next thing we knew we were running for our lives. There must have been twenty infected lurking somewhere. We didn’t see them when we drove in, but they obviously heard us. They cut us off from the vehicles and we barely got out in one piece. Five miles we had to walk back, but at least we got out.”
“So that’s it? You didn’t try to go back for them?” Wren asked.
“The key to us lasting as long as we have has been avoidance rather than confrontation. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but fighters we are not. In the past, we’ve managed to kill the odd one here and there but never that many. Like I said, we’ve got a good stock of supplies. We’ve made a small garden for when spring comes around. We’ve got fishing rods, although none of us knows the first thing about fishing.” The confident look on the woman’s face slowly drained. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“The winters are very long up here.”
“We were all living in a guesthouse this time last year,” she said with a fond smile. She was probably not much older than thirty-five, but stress had taken a toll on her and flashes of grey decorated her dark brown hair. “We got raided. Lost six people that night. We got to the vans, and they gave chase, but we lost them eventually.”
“So this is it? This is your plan?” Wren said, gesturing around her.
“It’s not as bad as it seems. We can have warm food. The forest protects us from the worst of the wind and rain.”
“And when the snow starts?”
The woman looked nervously around. “We’ll manage. We always manage.”
“No, you won’t.” Wren stuck out her right hand. “I’m Wren.”
“I’m Miranda, but my friends call me Emmy.” They shook hands warmly, and both smiled.
“Let me guess, your dad’s a Shakespeare fan. Miranda’s from The Tempest, isn’t she?”
The older woman laughed. “You’ve got him sussed anyway.”
“I’m Larry,” Wolf’s victim called over as his nurse finished the dressing on his arm. “Your dog won’t bite me again if I come over there, will he?”
“I’m sorry about that,” Wren replied. “He must have spotted the gun. He was just trying to protect me.”
“Well, I can’t blame him for that,” Larry said, walking across to them. The others kept a watchful distance as they got on with various cho
res while the heads of the camp spoke to the newcomers.
“So the gun, all the swords, they’re all just props?”
“All props. The gun practically shakes apart every time we fire it, and the swords are as blunt as a drunken Yorkshireman.”
Wren laughed out loud. “Oh man, that’s really blunt.”
“You know many Yorkshiremen?”
“Just one,” she replied, smiling.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Robyn said, tapping Wren on the arm.
“This is my sister, Robyn. That’s, Mila, Josh, Ruby and Tommy.”
“Hi,” Larry and Emmy said in unison.
“Yeah, hi, charmed I’m sure,” Robyn said with a false smile before guiding her sister away with Wolf quietly following by her side.
“Look, I can see where this is going. Don’t you think Safe Haven has enough dead wood without inviting more?”
“These people aren’t a threat, Bobbi. They won’t last out here, and they need our help.” Wren looked over her sister’s shoulder to see that Mila and Josh were both listening intently. “My friend, David, died the other day. He was a librarian. I know what you’re thinking, dead wood, right?”
“I don’t really remember any librarian superheroes, Sis.”
“Maybe not. And before Mike found him, he was probably going to end up as just another statistic. But he had a place in Safe Haven. He was important. He was respected. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have any of the fortifications, the weapons, the—”
“Fortifications?” Josh asked.
“Yeah. He and my grandad helped to design them. We’ve got siege weapons at strategic points on the roads to repel attacks, and we’ve even got a navy.”
“No offence, but it didn’t really do you a lot of good, did it?” Robyn replied.
A flash of anger swept over Wren’s face. “Yeah, well, things sometimes happen that nobody expects. And, yes, we took a beating. And people died, friends of mine, good people. But we won. We took down the enemy, and there might be more work to do until we get the place back to what it was, and we might have more battles to come, but we’ll fight them together. The point is, though, everybody has a place in Safe Haven, and sometimes it's the people you expect the least of who make the biggest contributions.” Some of the bluster left Wren as she continued her face-off with her sister.
The End of Everything | Book 9 | The End of Everything Page 7
