UK Dark Trilogy

by Harris, Chris

  The young boy had more sense than most grown-ups. One of their attackers had escaped and he knew he could return at any time. He also knew that he was likely to bring others, and that he wouldn’t be able to fight them off again.

  He thought hard about what they should do. He didn’t want to leave the warehouse. It was the only place he knew and he was more afraid of what was outside the fences than of what might happen if they stayed. Following Gumin’s defeat, a lookout post had been constructed on the roof.

  It had rarely been used, as it involved a perilous climb up racking, followed by an equally hazardous ascent up a ladder from the top of a rack, to get through an open roof light.

  Undaunted, Isaac climbed up to inspect it. It was perfect.

  The small but cunningly disguised lookout post had been reinforced with sand bags and gave a clear view over the front of the property.

  Further back inside, a shelter had been constructed to provide protection from the elements for the sentries, who could stretch their aching backs and muscles after long periods in cramped conditions.

  Despite its lack of use, it had survived the winter reasonably well and Isaac realised immediately that it would be a perfect place for him and his sister to hide.

  A few hours later, he had hauled up bedding and enough food and other supplies and equipment to last them for a while. But it was only when they had pulled up the ladder and effectively “raised the drawbridge” on their castle that they felt safe.

  To relieve the boredom, they spent most of the day in the lookout playing imaginary games.

  When they caught sight of us the following day, they immediately thought it was the lone survivor returning with more help. Without hesitation Isaac prepared his weapon and got ready to defend their home.

  The tears streamed down his face as he described his relief on recognising Harry and the realisation that their ordeal was over. The fact that he had managed, against all odds, to keep his sister safe reduced some of us to tears too.

  I decided not to show him the bullet hole in my shirt and how close he had come to hitting me. This ten-year-old boy had shown more courage and determination than most adults would have done.

  The harsh reality of our new lives was forcing everyone to re-evaluate the way we lived and the way we raised our children. In the past, we had cocooned our children. Death, although common in far off, war-torn countries, had been dealt with in a safe and sanitised way. Now death and all its associated horrors were unfortunately common occurrences and you could no longer shield the young ones from it. But this young boy had killed three people and was ready to kill again to protect himself and his sister.

  I couldn’t imagine what a psychologist would say, but it was clear that careful thought would have to be given to helping him recover.

  Life was now about survival, but those of us who still valued our humanity were determined to preserve a level of common decency and mutual respect. We sincerely hoped that we would succeed.

  Harry gave Isaac and Lottie a brief, “child friendly” version of what had happened to us and why we were camping out in the woods nearby. He concluded by asking gently if, providing it was OK with them, they could come and live with us from now on.

  They readily agreed. I admired the way Harry handled that situation. Those children had shown a level of maturity and independence way beyond their years, by surviving for so long on their own. They had even had to kill to protect themselves and therefore they deserved to be treated as adults: capable of making their own choices.

  We helped them to gather what personal possessions they had, and after securing the doors to the warehouse as best we could, we headed back to the woods.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We had maintained contact via radio throughout the day, so the others knew that we were on our way back. We had also let them know that we would be bringing back guests who had been exposed to the disease and therefore everyone would need to wear their masks on our arrival.

  Harry decided that as he had already exposed himself to risk, there was not much point in putting his mask back on.

  We had all relaxed a little. Harry was carrying Lottie on his shoulders and we were walking along bunched together. The basic rule was that you had to be vigilant at all times, as danger could lurk around every corner.

  But we had forgotten that.

  Four of us were discussing what should be done with the food in the warehouse. The most feasible idea was for the base to mount an expedition. They had the lorries and they had forklifts, and they could transport these using low loaders.

  It would take a lot of work to pull it off but the base was more than capable of handling it in terms of resources and manpower.

  The twin booms of both barrels of a shotgun being fired made us all dive for the nearest cover. I looked round to see Harry lying on the floor, holding his leg and screaming and swearing in pain, Lottie, who had been on Harry’s shoulders, was also screaming.

  Worryingly, another of our group, Gary, was lying motionless on his back.

  I had thrown myself to the ground and raising my rifle, I fired blindly in the direction I thought the shot had come from.

  Everyone else followed suit. As I was changing magazines I glanced back at Harry, He was crawling painfully towards shelter, trying to keep the still screaming Lottie behind him, in an effort to shield her with his body.

  A boom and the blast of shot passing close to my head forced me to roll quickly to the nearest cove behind a garden wall.

  “Harry! Talk to me! Are you OK?” I yelled frantically, between bursts of rifle fire from us and booms of shotguns from our unknown attackers.

  “Yes, yes. I’m OK,” he shouted back. “Just got pinged by a few pellets. Hurts like hell but I don’t think anything vital’s been hit. Lottie’s OK as well. Banged her head a bit when I fell but she’s all right.”

  I tried to call to Gary but got no response.

  Now Harry had Lottie in a safe place, he took command. He quickly established that apart from Gary, who did not look good, we were all behind cover and able to fire our weapons towards the enemy.

  Our attackers had gone quiet, possibly because the sustained fire from our automatic weapons had given us fire superiority and had them ducking for cover.

  Silence reigned. I thought quickly. Time to act.

  “I need to check on Gary. Everyone get ready to cover me. Is that OK Harry?”

  “Yes, Tom. And you showing yourself might get them to break cover.”

  It took me a few moments to mentally prepare myself before running into danger one more time. I closed my eyes and took a few breaths then shouted for everyone to get ready.

  Then I ran as fast as I could and slid to a halt beside Gary, expecting to hear the boom and feel the pain of the shot. But it never came. Gary’s face was a bloody mess. I was becoming accustomed to seeing gunshot wounds and he looked as if he’d taken the force of a heavy gauge shot gun cartridge full in the face.

  Incredibly he was still alive, but barely. The range from which he had been shot must have saved his life. He was unconscious and his breathing was shallow and laboured. I felt despair. There was nothing I could do.

  Part of our training had included emergency field medicine, so I knew what not to do if something like this happened.

  For one thing, I knew that morphine supresses breathing and as Gary’s breathing was already shallow, it would be too risky to give him any.

  “He’s alive but he’s not good,” I shouted, “I think he needs more than what we can do for him.”

  “Right,” shouted Harry, “let’s clear them out. You know the routine.” With Harry directing us, the group leapfrogged forward. Harry led the way, limping badly and hopping from cover to cover.

  Within five minutes it was clear that they had gone. Spent shotgun shells scattered on the ground were the only indication that anyone had been there.

  After we’d checked the surrounding area to make sure they had really g
one, Harry positioned everyone to provide all round security and hobbled over to where I still lay, holding Gary’s hand, and talking to him in an effort to reassure him.

  He took one look at Gary and the mess that had been his face. “He’ll need to be evacuated to the base hospital. They’re the only ones who can deal with this.”

  “I thought they were on lockdown because of the plague?”

  “They are. The only exception is a medical emergency. And this I would say, falls into that category.”

  He raised Colonel Moore on the radio and put in his emergency request for a helicopter medevac.

  Although the base had several working helicopters, it had been decided to restrict their use to an absolute minimum. Fuel was not a problem, but spare parts were. Routine maintenance was required after every flight and it soon became apparent that at some point in the future, the scarcity of parts would ground them. For that reason, every flight had to be authorised at the highest level to husband their limited lifespan for as long as possible.

  Medical emergencies were obviously at the top of the list, so Colonel Moore lost no time in authorising the flight.

  “You wouldn’t be asking unless it was necessary. If one of our own needs help, the answer is yes. It should be with you in an hour,” was his curt reply.

  Gary couldn’t be moved; we would have to wait for the helicopter and medics to arrive. We sat around feeling incredibly vulnerable. We had just been attacked and now we found ourselves in an exposed position in the middle of an urban street. Apart from the people who were trying to make Gary comfortable, everyone faced outwards, weapons held ready.

  Russ spoke up, “We’re sitting ducks here. Let’s push some of the cars into a better position to give us all some cover.”

  It made perfect sense, and in no time at all, we’d broken into the nearest cars and pushed them into position so that they surrounded us.

  Now that we were feeling more secure, some of us took a break behind the barricade while we rotated lookouts.

  The next step was to identify the nearest landing place for the helicopter and mark it out so that it could be seen from the air. Harry sent the coordinates through to the base. Now that we had the chance to stop and think, the questions came.

  “What the hell happened?” someone asked.

  “We got sloppy!” I replied angrily, “That’s what happened. All the things we’ve been through, the fights we’ve had, and now all that extra training we’ve been given means nothing. We acted like amateurs out for a Sunday stroll. We thought the mission was over and we were on our way home, and Gary paid for our mistakes.”

  The others listened in silence.

  “Most likely the gang were returning to the warehouse,” I said wearily, “Sod’s law dictated we were going to meet head on. They must have heard us chattering like old women and set up a hasty ambush. The only thing they weren’t expecting was all that firepower we could put down; that scared them and they ran.”

  “No! It was my fault,” interrupted Harry, “I’m in command here; the fault lies with me and no one else. I won’t have it any other way.

  Yes, we messed up, but if the gang was on its way back to the warehouse, then at least we got Isaac and Lottie out in time. Dropping our guard is a mistake I will never make again, but for now we need to concentrate on getting Gary on that helicopter, and the rest of us back to the woods in one piece.”

  Harry raised Pete on the radio and told him what had happened. The shots had been heard up at the woods and they had been going out of their minds with worry. Harry spoke to Emma, Gary’s wife, directly.

  He told her what had happened and tried to be as honest as he could about the injuries he had received. He ended the call with a promise that, if possible, he would arrange for transport for her and their child, Marcie, back to the base as soon as possible.

  Only then would he allow Chris to inspect his leg.

  Although he had been stoically coping with the pain, it was clear that he was in a lot of discomfort. After cutting his left trouser leg and washing away the blood, Chris confirmed that the lower leg had received a good peppering. It looked bad and had bled a lot but thankfully, was mostly superficial. He gave Harry a dose of morphine, and after cleaning the wounds as best he could and applying a liberal dose of antiseptic cream to the entire area, he bandaged him up.

  Once they were back in the woods he would “have a go” at removing the pellets from his leg.

  The distant but unmistakable thwomp of an approaching helicopter stopped all conversation.

  The helicopter looked huge as it circled above us. We could see the door gunners on either side of the aircraft scanning the area with their machine guns, ready to respond to any threat.

  As soon as it touched down, four soldiers disembarked from it. Two of them moved to the front and rear of the aircraft and crouched down, presumably so that they could cover any blind spots the door gunners might have.

  The other two ran towards us. Ignoring us completely, they started working on Gary. We gave them space so that they could do their job.

  The noise of the helicopter and the fact that they were wearing masks made communication next to impossible. After about five minutes, and following their hand signals, we helped lift Gary on to a collapsible stretcher they had with them and two of us helped carry him to the helicopter.

  As soon as he was strapped in, and after a quick handshake with the medics, the soldiers jumped aboard the helicopter and it lifted off and sped away.

  The silence in the wake of the constant assault of noise from the helicopter was a relief.

  Harry took command again.

  “Right, let’s go home. Keep Lottie and Isaac in the middle of us, keep the chat to a minimum and stay alert. We don’t know where those bastards went.”

  Shouldering our rucksacks, we set off.

  We made it back to the woods with a few hours of daylight left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Although we were greeted with relief on our return to the camp, everyone’s attention was focused on Gary’s wife, Emma and his daughter Marcie, who were both distraught and desperate to be by his side.

  Harry tried to comfort them by reiterating his promise of getting them to the base as soon as possible. He’d put his gas mask on before his arrival to avoid the possibility of infecting anyone.

  On their arrival, Isaac and Lottie had been set apart from the main group. We’d been careful to explain this to them, and our reasons for doing so, as simply as possible and both children seemed to accept the explanation. Diane, still wearing her mask, had volunteered to stay with them, holding their hands to keep them company while they watched our emotional reunion with the others from a distance.

  Harry took Kim by the hand and led her away from the group. I watched them, knowing that he was going to have to explain that he would be in isolation for a time, just in case. That was likely to be a difficult conversation.

  We had talked it through earlier and he had been philosophical about it. He still maintained that the risk he had taken had been worth it. He also pointed out that someone would have to look after Isaac and Lottie, and he was now the ideal candidate for the job and that this way, there would be no danger to anyone else.

  His logic was sound. Apart from the fact that he now had to tell Kim. I watched as Kim went through a variety of different emotions in a few seconds. Shock at the news, worry about what might happen to him, and anger at what he had done. Finally, to his surprise and mine, she took her revenge.

  Without warning, she grabbed his gas mask and pulled it from his face, removed her own and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could stop her, she kissed him. I chuckled to myself and said to the world in general, “Well that’s another one in isolation then!”

  After Chris had worked on his leg and removed as many pellets as he could, Chris, Russ and I helped Harry move enough equipment to create a new camp for them on the other side of the woods. We figured they might as well
be comfortable in their isolation, particularly as they now had two young children to look after. In the end, we had quite a pile to transport and it took a few runs to complete the operation.

  After building their shelters and setting up a cooking area, we left them to it. We would be checking in on them daily (in other words, shouting to them from a distance to see if everything was OK or if they needed anything). We’d agreed on a four-day isolation period.

  He had received a severe reprimand from Colonel Moore about the position in which he had placed himself. But given that it had already happened, it was taken no further.

  Aware that he had got off very lightly, Harry bore the dressing-down with good grace, aware that the Colonel’s fury stemmed as much from his concern about the Prince’s welfare as it did from any disobedience he had shown.

  The medical staff at the base were very interested in Isaac and Lottie. Other people had fallen ill and recovered from the disease, but to their knowledge, they were the first subjects to have been in prolonged and close contact with the disease and shown no ill-effects whatsoever. They had to be immune.

  We knew that serious consideration had been given to whisking them off to the base for further testing, in the hope of developing a potential cure and using them as test subjects.

  Thankfully, the realisation that the plague was probably burning itself out by now, and the fact that the equipment they had at their disposal would make it impossible to produce a viable vaccine in time, led to the project being shelved.

  As things stood, we would have been reluctant to let them go anyway. They had suffered enough and although we could see the logic in the proposal, the thought of two traumatised children being used for medical research was something none of us were comfortable with. We were greatly relieved to hear that the plan had been dropped.