He’d had to leave his car to void his stomach into a ditch. A common enough reaction to the violence he’d seen, even hours after the event. A short walk in the silent woods to clear his head had seemed the thing. In truth his threat to hunt the men had been hollow until he knew which way they had flown. He believed David strong enough to survive his wound, he just hoped the men thought him useful enough to nurse back to health.
He passed an abandoned shack standing doorstep deep in water. Some still chose to live in isolation out in the woods. He thought them fools to live apart from company through choice. And bigger fools for pitching homes on low lying land.
He reached a fallen tree trunk and settled himself down upon it, his body ached for sleep and his muscles protested as he sat. He removed his hat and placed it gently beside him. He’d spent half the night digging Helen’s grave beneath an old willow in a field behind her house. As he’d piled the earth on top of her body he’d muttered every prayer he knew for her soul, but mostly he’d whispered apologies for not protecting her and David. He had promised her, before God, to keep her son from harm and he’d fallen short, so as he’d knelt at her grave he had vowed to find the boy and bring him home to where his mother lay. He’d left the gunman unburied because his ghost deserved no rest.
He ran the sounds and images of the previous evening through his mind again. The straight view was that the men had come for David, they had after all made off with him, though their methods were crook. The dart could have been intended for the boy and when that became unnecessary Gunnar used it on him, the meanest threat in the room. Simple. But there was another telling that troubled him. It was a hunted man’s take on events but the through story was that they had indeed come for him, though there was no answering the question of how they’d known he was there, or why they had worn no masks?
No matter he had no answers now, the fact was that two lives had been lost last night. He knew not how others coped with taking life but when he’d been cornered into doing it himself it always sickened him and each time, he knew, a small part at the heart of him hardened to stone. And his greatest fear was that eventually there’d be no place left for the guilt and remorse to live.
He stood and began to make his way back to the car. The sun on his back had ignited the intense burning irritation of his webbing undershirt and for once he was glad of it. The torment reminded him of the bitter constraints of his life but it also proved there was feeling inside him yet.
Three hours later, Mann edged the Beetle down a dirt track, avoiding the worst of the water filled potholes. The desolate fields to left and right showed no signs of life bar the jackdaws picking over the ground. At the end of the track he drew up in a courtyard surrounded by an old farmhouse, a broken down barn and some out buildings. This place was the closest he knew to a home, and outside the farmhouse stood Keen and Amir, the closest people he had to family. There was a broad smile of her face and a ghost of one on his. Mann climbed out of the car and threw a brace of rabbits to Amir who caught them with an appreciative nod. Keen ran fast to Mann and threw her arms around him in a fierce embrace, ‘John,’ she laughed, ‘I knew you would come today.’
Chapter Three
The Communications room is a hive of activity. Like a bunker, there are no windows and only one heavily guarded door. The unchanging air is stale, and abuzz with chatter. A dozen green uniformed men and women bustle about the place carrying yellowing index cards while a bank of six operators sit wearing headphones in front of Morse code machines, either tapping out messages or listening to incoming code. Two higher ranked radio operators busy themselves in a glass-panelled booth at one end of the room.
The dim, low volt lighting flickers and there is a collective intake of breath as everyone pauses to see whether the generator will kick back in or whether the lights will die again. There is a mumbled cheer as they crackle back to life accompanied now by a low, insistent hum.
Private Daniel Vincent is 24 years old and this is his third day on active duty in the Comms room. He graduated top of his class at Longmoor, showing a natural aptitude for telegraphy, hence the special assignment in Comms as Russell’s personal aide. He can sense her behind him now and she’s making him nervous. He’s yet to hear her actually speak. When he was introduced to her she simply looked at him once, fixing his face in her memory for future reference. She is American and he’s still only ever heard an American voice on the radio. His personal goal is to elicit some thanks from her, a few words of praise for a job well done. Andrews in the seat beside him thinks this proves his mind isn’t on the job but on personal glory and will be his fall, but Andrews is a bum sniffer.
The tension in her body is palpable, he feels it like an electric current on the nape of his neck. The concentrated stillness of her gives her more weight and authority than anyone else in the room, even though she is easily the most slight.
Suddenly Vincent’s headphones are alive with the clatter of code, a short burst of confirmation in reply to the urgent demand he’d tapped out only a minute before. He notes it down exactly as given. He removes his headphones, spins around in his chair and jumps to his feet to face Russell. He holds out the message slip towards her as all the noise in the room falls away.
‘We have verification of original message Ma’am. Body found, male Caucasian. No more than ten hours since infection. No local outbreak in surrounding town or villages. An isolated incident.’ Vincent strives to keep the note of triumph out of his voice.
Her gaze skewers him as she takes the paper from his moist fingers and, without a word she turns and marches from the room.
Vincent collapses back into his seat. The room is still silent and all eyes are focused on him, in a troubling way. It takes him two blinks to realise why. What had he been thinking, reading the message to the room when it was meant for her eyes alone? His worried gaze flickers to Andrews beside him, but Andrews has turned his back. The whole room has done the same, cut him adrift like he has the choke. Captain Miller is already making her way, grim faced, to where he sits. He feels sick, he’ll be busted back to clerical within the hour, he knows.
Outside the Comms room door, Russell takes a moment to scan the message slip again before heading at speed down the gloomy corridor to her office. Once inside she crosses swiftly to the large map on the wall, studded with multi-coloured pins. She selects a new red pin and pushes it firmly into the map, right into the heart of the town where Mann’s trail had once again sparked to life. She has had to be patient, very patient. It had been ten years since she’d last seen him, three years and eighteen days since his last confirmed activity. There were dark moments when she feared he might be dead, as everyone else believed him to be, but she had kept faith with him.
She focused hard on the map, on the place he’d just been as if she could animate the town streets he’d walked and see him in miniature, follow his trail. She tapped the red pin with her finger, ‘Welcome back John.’ she whispered.
Chapter Four
‘Barge?’
Mann shrugged, ‘He was the size of one.’
‘Gunnar is a Scandinavian name, by the way, if that will help to track him.’ Keen said.
Mann nodded, ‘I’ll have to track him to find David.’
‘Will the boy have survived such a wound?’ Keen said anxiously, ‘The bastards won’t have sourced a Doctor, they’d have let his life leak away.’
‘I have to believe he’s not in the ground.’ Mann said.
‘Were they chancers after the child, or were you the target?’ Amir asked.
‘It played like they came for David but I can reason it to be about me. Things moved fast, all was confusion.’
‘If not military then what, and how would they know you were there?’ Keen asked.
Mann shrugged and then a dark shadow settled over his face, ‘I had thought my days of ending life were over.’
‘They were soldiers of fortune, they knew the risks.’ Said Amir.
‘One thing is certain, yo
u left a body so you’re back on the grid.’ Added Keen, 'I’ll scan the frequencies, speak to contacts, see if there have been any unusual spikes in the chatter. They have their moles and squealers but so do we.’
‘Don’t ask any loud questions.’ Mann warned, ‘Don’t bring anyone running to your door. I couldn’t live with myself.’
‘Then don’t track the boy, John.’
‘I promised his mother I’d keep him safe.’
A gloomy silence settled for a while as they buried themselves deeper in blankets before the beech wood fire, watching the smoke drift up from Amir’s tallow candles.
‘Do the military have the tech now to track me?’ Mann asked.
‘Unlikely.’ Keen assured him, ‘They have all the hardware still but not the expertise or the computing power on anything like the scale needed to make use of it. We think their internal DataWeb now links all departments in an area and that should give them the ability to share information quite efficiently.’
‘When the electricity holds,’ Amir added with a laugh, ‘we know of some committed to cutting their cables whenever they can.’
‘We guess at their capabilities really. They are skilled at plugging leaks and we know they put out false information to mislead us into thinking they hear and see all. Some believe they are as blind as bats, others that they are on the verge of re-harnessing all the old tech and bringing the world back as it was.’
‘As long as they bring back coffee too.’ Said Amir.
‘I never tasted that.’ Keen said.
‘I did once. It kept me up all night.’ Replied Amir.
‘Mmmm.’ Teased Keen. Amir laughed and squeezed her thigh.
‘Time I turned in.’ Said Mann.
Chapter Five
All Hallows was their favourite celebration, it was one of very few opportunities for all the local youngsters to come together in one place without chaperone. Many old folk thought it was inappropriate to hold a festival of the dead but then they’d been young in darker times and now perhaps saw death’s face behind them every time they looked in a mirror. True even John and his friends had shied away from celebrating two years previously when an outbreak of the choke had killed 18 people in a village not 40 miles distant in the week before the big night. But being young the possibility of sudden death seemed remote and 40 miles was, after all, two day’s walk away.
As the oldest group amongst the youngsters it had fallen to him and his friends to organise the party. He, Tom and the other boys had spent all day carving Jack O’Lanterns and moving hay bales while the girls had been preparing food, and Jonas Pike’s cousin had promised to secretly source three bottles of Barb wine that he said lived up to the name this year.
The barn on Tom’s father’s farm was the chosen venue, after pledges were made to keep naked flames and hay bales a goodly distance apart, and lectures about improper behaviour, keeping masks on and strangers out had been endured. The parents would be gathering in the farmhouse nearby and would know immediately if things were getting out of hand.
John thought this year’s party the best he’d known and the thought was tinged with a sweet nostalgia as it was probably the last year he’d be involved. He’d just turned 16 and would soon be responsible for his own piece of land and there’d already been talk of him finding a wife. He’d have far too many responsibilities then to indulge in snap-apple and guising from door to door for treats. He’d see the evening out in the farmhouse with the adults next year.
Two hours into the party and masks were down. Tom and he had been conniving to get Anna Thomas and Gillian Hand to dance with them. Neither lad cared to dance but both cared very much about getting their arms around some pretty girls. And this seemed a certainty during the whirl of a dance. Tom couldn’t understand why the music gave them licence to do something that otherwise the girls denied them. It was one of those mysterious rules that girls invented and boys just couldn’t fathom. John didn’t care much why it was and swallowed another belt of Barb wine that, he found, was making his teeth ache.
His head felt light and he was a bit disorientated from the din of the music, the stamping feet and the flickering shadows from the ghoulish pumpkin heads placed about. Friends were shouting into each other’s faces just to be heard. He scanned the room and spotted a scrawny girl slipping in through the latch door behind him. It could be William Dunn’s younger sister but he couldn’t be sure in this light. Still, the watch was out on the roads so the chances she was a wandering stranger were thin. She’d probably just crept outside to be sick. He certainly wouldn’t make that mistake again this year. Tom appeared all at once beside him with Gillian in tow. He looked sweaty and she looked pleased with herself. If Tom had claimed a kiss from her John would be hot with envy. Tom had once kissed Susan Jenks too. Everyone had kissed Susan Jenks except for John, she had spurned him with a snort because he had whiskers on his top lip and she said that kissing him would be like kissing her Uncle. John had been immensely proud of those few dark hairs until they had bilked him out of his first kiss.
Anna was nearby now and she and Gillian were giggling behind their hands, he hoped it wasn’t about his whiskers. He put his hand to his top lip defensively. Tom dug him hard in the ribs and smirked at him. His ribs sang out in protest and he rubbed at them wondering if he had time to run outside and pee before he’d be expected to dance.
He was first aware of the commotion behind him, then off to his right. A tremor ran through the barn like an icy blast of wind. The music stopped and a few cries of warning went up and then a rush of panic followed, accompanied by the rustle and snap of masks and mufflers being pulled into place. It was a routine drilled into them all as toddlers and something they’d learned to dread since they was old enough to understand anything at all. Drills in the schoolroom, an innocent cough in the market square, a traveller spotted in a field nearby, no one ever got used to the fearful panic. Everyone had shuffled a few paces away from their neighbour as if putting a body length of clear space around them self was barrier enough. He heard a whimper, probably one of the younger children.
He glanced frantically around the barn to see dozens of pairs of eyes alive with fright and suspicion doing the same. Everyone was still standing, no one looked to be in distress. Surely a false alarm then. The redheaded boy on stage had even taken up his fiddle again and had begun to saw out a tune.
A blink, two blinks passed and then he saw her half hidden by some bales, the latch door girl lying prone. He span around to warn Tom at the same moment Tom caught ahold of his arm with a grip that made him twist it away in pain and alarm. Tom’s face was warped in panic as he clawed at his mask, Anna too was flailing and Gillian was already down on all fours.
So fast, why was it happening so fast? He felt a wave of heat pass through him, a burning flush filled his head until he thought it would burst open. His skin prickled as rivers of sweat coursed down from his scalp and his mouth began to fill with too much drool to swallow. He choked on it. He wrenched off his muffler to let the saliva spill down his chin while he gasped for air. He sank to his knees and willed away the panic, he’d never draw breath if the panic filled his chest. Beyond the roaring of blood in his ears he heard chokes and cries of friends falling around him. Tom and Anna now lay writhing in front of him. He pissed his trousers. He was dimly aware that the barn doors were open and masked adults stood on the threshold, shouting and screaming but not daring to enter. Then his throat clamped shut and he sank into a hot and fearful darkness.
Chapter Six
Mann woke with a cry wrenched from deep inside his chest. He kicked to be free of the sodden sheets that wrapped him tight. The bedroom door flew open and Keen appeared holding a lighted lamp.
‘The dream?’
Mann nodded and fought to catch his breath. Keen moved to the bed and Mann stopped her with a raised hand. ‘I’m wet with sweat.’
‘I’m not afraid of you.’ Keen placed the lamp on the night-stand.
‘You sh
ould be.’
‘It’s hard to be scared of a man when you’ve washed his rump.’
Mann grimaced, ‘Where’s my undershirt?’ he said.
‘Still drying, we laundered your clothes.’
He lifted pleading eyes to hers and with a sigh she left the room. Mann sat breathing deeply, calming himself. When Keen returned she handed him the vest.
‘You still panic without it.’
Mann struggled to pull on the stiff, rough garment, remembering the punch of the dart it had baffled. He saw Keen eyeing the raw skin across his shoulders and chest. ‘It keeps my temperature high. It keeps me safe.’
‘It makes you unhappy.’ Keen sighed. She reached out her hand to stroke the webbing of the vest and he felt her cool, sweet breath on his face, ‘You wear it like armour, not for your hide but for your heart.’
Mann placed his hand over Keen’s. ‘Remember Ursula?’
Keen stiffened, ‘Pah, Bug Hunter.’
Mann’s face fell and Keen regretted her words. ‘I’m sorry. I should never have said that.’
‘No, you are right.’ Mann tenderly brushed a tangle of auburn curls away from Keen’s face and whispered, ‘Her ghost serves to remind me, always, to have a care around you.’