“Hello?”
“Well, don’t just stand there, come on in. As you can see nobody’s about, but I’d be happy if you’d join me here at the counter.”
“Where’s the owner?”
“Out the back; I expect he’ll be here shortly. He was just cooking me a bacon supper. What’s the matter child? You look pale.”
“Haven’t you heard the news? A madman’s escaped from the asylum on the moors. They’re telling everyone to stay inside and lock their doors, but I’m so far from home. I don’t know any hotels round here...”
“Relax. You’re safe here. And what better than warm coffee and conversation on such a cold night as this?”
“Well ... alright.”
“What’s the matter? Are my trousers dirty?”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just … they said on the radio that the maniac only has one leg. He escaped with a false one, but lost it in the race to get away from the police.”
“Well, as you can see, I have two perfectly fine legs. See, neither one is wooden. You can hear by the sound.”
“How long do you think it will take to catch him? I don’t feel safe to go and look for somewhere to stay, not even in the centre of town where we are now.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll get their man. They always do. And how far could he get on one leg? Where’s that waiter got to? Listen, I’m sure he won’t mind if I pour you a coffee myself. He seems to be a little busy with preparing my meal.”
“Smells like he’s burning it”
“Yes, it does a little, but I did say I liked it well done. Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
“So what brings you down this quiet way?”
“I was just on my way home from visiting a friend; I thought coming this way through the countryside I would save myself a day’s travel. Now I wish I’d never come.”
“Try to relax. These things are always blown out of proportion in the media. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“Really. I’ve heard terrible stories.”
“Do you mean by any chance those awful urban myths that circulate round from time to time?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Stories. You know ‘It happened to a friend of a friend’. That sort of thing. Let me give you an example - if it won’t spook you too much.”
“Go on.”
“There was this convicted bank robber, in England. I forget which city he was supposed to be serving his time in, but he had a plan to escape.
You see, outside he had a hefty bit of money stashed away, part of his ill-gotten gains and he thought he could use this money as a bribe. He looked about for a suitable subject, thinking all the while of a plan. Eventually, he got talking to the prison caretaker and offered him a substantial amount of the money to participate in the scheme he had cooked up.”
“How was he going to do it?”
“That was just what I was getting to. He planned to sneak into the mortuary and climb into a coffin. His bribe to the caretaker was for the man not to nail down the lid. It seemed devilishly simple to him. He would gather some possessions, get transported out in the coffin, then escape from it once he was outside ... Someone’s coming. I saw headlights in the street outside.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t matter, it’s probably just the police searching for the one-legged man like you said. Won’t you continue?”
“O.K ... So, at first it all went to plan. He took some food and a flashlight and got into the coffin, hiding himself under the body for extra security. Grizzly, I know; I can see you shiver at the thought. But this was a desperate man.”
“Things didn’t go right for him did they?”
“No. He felt the coffin being taken outside, even waited for the ceremonies to be finished. Then, when it was quiet, he decided it was his moment to escape. First though, he thought he would just take a peek at who he was sharing the coffin with. He clicked his flashlight on … and saw to his horror it was the caretaker with whom he had made the agreement.”
“Did he get out?”
“It’s only a story. It probably never happened.”
“Hello? Come in, it’s good to have more company. This man was just telling me a story.”
“Ma'am, would you carefully like to step away from him?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just do as I say. Trust me.”
“What? I don’t understand. He can’t be the man you’re looking for, he’s got two legs.”
“I’m afraid I know this man. I arrested him three years ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s it. Now get behind me.”
“Is the gun necessary? He doesn’t seem dangerous.”
“You were saying about how the inmate we’re searching for has only one leg - well so does this man.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Take a closer look. See how one leg is shorter than the other?”
“Yes?”
“Well, this guy may have two legs at the moment, but one of them is stolen, probably from the man my deputy found round the back, lying across the stove with his leg cut off.”
“The waiter!”
“Perhaps it’s time I was going.”
“Freeze! Move and I shoot.”
“What do we do now?”
“We wait. Don’t worry Ma'am, my backup will be here soon.”
The Sniper’s Apprentice:
I see it in their faces when they watch me coming, in the furtive glances, the eyes that dart quickly away. Sometimes they do a double take as though they don’t believe what they are seeing. Some actually outright stare. I can feel the awe, tinged a little with fear. Once I was like them, but I have become something else, a legend. Like a tiger walking into the city, out of the jungle, I draw attention. Crowds part before me. I am creature of mystery: once a man, now something the ordinary people both revere and shy away from.
That is what it is to be a sniper in these days. It is a time far beyond the one in which you now sit. Decades have passed; the human world has crashed toward extinction and now barely begins to recover. These are simpler times, yet the weight of history is still with us, something in people’s genes makes them want to avoid repetition of the past; the horrific mistakes of over-consumption and mass population increase. Perhaps that will be enough to secure a better future - only time will tell, even I do not know.
I live in a central region of the country, a series of highly populated towns dominated by ‘the Army’. Whatever ‘the Army’ was, it has its own legends now, a wider web of stories of which the snipers are only a small part.
Once in the time of crisis there was a great gathering of forces, but before they could be effectively deployed, the great collapse began. A legendary military leader took command of the soldiers, drawing them inward to protect a small area from the chaos that shortly ensued.
Over time, structures of control formed. New habitations, once temporary, became permanent, and the Army became more like a clan than a vocation.
Now we protect the towns from the wilderness around us. Some people even know a measure of the order that was possible in the technological culture before the collapse. But not me – I have chosen another way.
A sniper is a ghost, so they say, able to turn invisible, to walk mystic ways that shortcut the long distances across the land. How much of what is spoken is true I will not say, but perhaps you will learn to gauge it better when we have spent more time together.
As I move through the surrounding woods, through the tangled fields of overgrown grasses, no-one sees me coming, not even the watchmen on the walls of the settlements. This is an art I have mastered, secrets that have been passed down to me. But is it magic as they say or lost skills of camouflage, stealth and misdirection?
Some will later say they could sense me coming, like the tension in the air before a storm, but that I have to admit is more in their heads than reality.
Normally
I roam the wilderness unseen, living in the most isolated, wild places, hunting the enemies of the Army or wandering its borders unseen, watching for trouble. But now I have been called - a general needs me. That is what they call the men or women who run the towns, usually a rank earned by experience, promotion through action under fire or wise decision making or being in the wrong place at the right time. I did not have to work my way up through the ranks like they did; although there was a day when I thought that was my lot, as a lowly Lance Corporal.
There should be more respect for the generals, in a way I feel I do not deserve the kudos I have, but I would never give it up. I love the admiration. I love the work too.
Sometimes I miss my more sociable days, when I might mix more with others, but something has changed within me, as though the sniper within me has pushed out the other parts of me as it grew. Now I relish the quiet of the wilderness, the peace of knowing that there are no other men for miles around.
Once upon a time I could not live without company. Now this call, dragging me back to civilisation is an annoyance. As I approach the town, I can feel the buzz of it in the air, like a thousand wasps buzzing around in my path, grating on my nerves.
I slip through a gap in the boundary fence obscured by a bush, a weakness they probably have not even noticed is there, into a side street that has not been entered for years.
Only as I emerge into the main street do they first see I have arrived. People stop and point, conversations stop in gape-mouthed surprise as I pass. The crowds part respectfully in my path.
My clothes are the camouflage colour of the wilderness, topped with the odd twig or bunch of leaves as