Amidst the falling dust (The Green and Pleasant Land) (9 page)

We spent an uncomfortable night in the undergrowth. I did not have the heart to ask where we were going, I don't think anyone knew. Everyone seemed to be undergoing some sort of psychological adjustment. The robust and unwavering Tasker was becoming withdrawn, as if even he was beginning to sag under the weight of our predicament.

We walked all through the next day down the valleys of the Lake District. I would say we were lost but it is difficult to be so when you don't seem to have any true destination in mind. Morale is gone, burned up with the car and all our kit. Boiled bark and muddy water do little for the appetite.

Darkness has fallen again and we have found a cave, nestled in some trees at the bottom of a large stony hill. My mind brings forth an echo of the past, it tells me that perhaps we are near Scafell, but such memories are unreliable and of little use in the here and now.

Patricia looks like she is asleep, or pretending to be so. So does Mark, I envy them. Tasker is apparently on guard though to be truthful I cannot see him and he might have just run off into the darkness hours ago for all I know.

Trowler and Sutton. They are very much awake. They are starting to disturb me. They are knelt over the green eyed man, they have been for hours. Their heads are bowed and their hands rest upon the dirt. They say nothing out loud but I am sure as can be that I can hear muttering and murmuring coming from the triad. Some conversation to which even the shadows would have to lean in if they wished to be privy to it. Against Taskers insistence a small fire lingers there at the entrance to the cave, another sign of his eroding authority.

My eyes begin to droop. My head dips every now and then and I can feel the blessed burden of sleep about to take me away for a time. But just as I am about to succumb I look up one last time. I start to shake and sweat. My heart flutters, my blood pounds. Sitting on a rock only a few feet from me, there is a cadaver.

It is a brutal looking beast. Though I am surprised by the neatness of its attire and its apparent lack of a desire to immediately start eating me. A grey shirt and trousers it wears. As I look on I start to notice other anomalies that do not fit with the profile of the living dead. Bandaged stumps protrude from the end of its shirt sleeves. And though its face is a lipless wreck that has had the humanity carved from it with a blade the eyes are pure and clear, and they stare steadily at me with the contemplative look of one who lives.

“Who are you?” I whisper.

“A man once, like you Patrick, now, a ghost perhaps, a ghost of the flesh”, its voice is halting, the sounds warped. The inside of his mouth reveals a torn stump of a tongue which slides uneasily over broken teeth. Even so, I can pick out the words.

“What do you want from me?”

“What do you have to give?” he slurs. My eyes glance over at the green eyed stranger. If Trowler and Sutton are aware of the conversation taking place they give no outward sign.

“Him?” I query.

The mutilated man nods but says. “He is not yours to give, which is much a pity, a great deal of change might come to the horrors in front and behind us if that was not the case”.

“What did he do?” I ask. The man considers the question.

“He broke the cycle, he broke me, and he...” the sentence cannot be finished, the man tails off.

“What is your name?” I quiz him uncertain of what to do, and curious as to how he seems to know me.

“My name is Robert Locklear.” The sound of the name sends a chill through me, I have a memory, a faint recollection of a dream, a dream of ravens biting at the dead, it is gone as soon as it arrives. We sit in silence for as long as I can bear until the discomfort prompts me into more questions.

“I have another question,” Locklear nods.

“What do the words 'Fey Le Nar raen' mean?” I can tell by the wide eyed stare that I have surprised him, there are still things he does not know.

“Where did you come by those words?” he asks me. I tell him of the encounter in Stefan Kesslers office. “Raen, as a literal translation means rise, as for the rest,” before continuing Locklear looks around, assessing the shadows for who might be listening. “The Fey Le Nar, is a group...whose history goes back further than any known to the established civilisations of the world”.

My question is answered but the revelation has caused a dozen more to take its place. I am trying to decide which one to ask next when he interrupts my decision making with a query of his own.

“Tell me of your travels Patrick, tell me of how you came to be at Edenpark and all that befell you there, perhaps there are yet more secrets to be shared between us”.

I told him, about all that had taken place since we left the carrier. He nodded through most of it. Then I got to the command centre, to the topic of the satellite feed, to the images which we'd seen which I'd been reluctant to share with anyone, even myself. He leans in close at this point. “We saw the world, for just a few moments, we saw the storms. Dark clouds, swirling hurricanes that stretched from one side of the planet to another, lightning flashed constantly. Vast clouds of ash obscured the world, where the cloud thinned we saw fire, fires that engulfed entire nations. The planet, the planet is dead Robert Locklear, the world has been swallowed by a maelstrom of fire and ashen darkness...”

“All except here”, he finished.

“All except here”, I repeat. “Why? The abyss has smothered all life from the face of the Earth, all bar Britain, the clouds hovered around our land, but they do not cross the seas, they do not breech some damned, blessed barrier which prolongs our agony.”

“This is a sacred land, Patrick, a special land.”

“What does any of this mean, why are we still here?” I implore him for some answers. Locklear stands unsteadily. I can see the bulge of heavy bandaging on his knees and he grunts in pain as he staggers towards me. A bloody stump lays on my shoulder as he leans in close, I lose my gaze in the horrible gaping wounds on his face, fascinated and reviled in tandem.

“Patrick, Patrick, Patrick” he whispers in a distant voice over and over and over.

“Patrick” shouts Patricia and I come to. She is leaning over me as is Mark Kirby. Of Robert Locklear there is no sign.

“Whats wrong?” I ask,

“You were screaming in your sleep”, says Patricia. I can see Tasker standing near the entrance to the cave. I climb to my feet shaking the sleep from my head. Light has started to creep over the horizon, winding its way down through the canopy and into the eyes and minds of we surviving few. What the day will bring I do not know. But all of a sudden Trowler and Dan Sutton pick the stranger up on his stretcher and walk out of the cave with him. As they pass I am certain I can see a smile on the face of the green eyed man. With little choice or alternative the rest of us follow them off into the woods.

We trudged through the forest. Every now and then I could see Tasker shaking his head, the unmistakable sound of disgusted tutting followed in his wake. Conversations were short, abrupt things, built on no more than absolute necessity.

We spent another uncomfortable night in the wild. Though no more dreams came my way for which I was thankful.

“Got any particular idea where you're going?” sneered Tasker to Trowler and Sutton.

“West” came the unhelpful reply. Night fell. There were whispers all through the darkness. Arguments in hushed voices about how people had changed and where did their loyalty lie. There was conspiracy and consternation all through the night. None of it comes my way first, for I was a minnow, a coward who would likely run. Until the dawn that was when Tasker came slithering over a log and crept close to my ear.

“Just don't get involved” he hissed. “Things are getting out of control, the time has come to end this, we must get back to what we know”. I just nodded and stammered out a hushed affirmative.

The light came, he sloped off. We all rose. The injured man was lifted up and we started to make our way along. After a time I heard the seagulls and realised how close to to coast we were bearing.

We stop for a break around midday. As we made to stand Tasker made his move, I did as I was told, I did not get involved.

“Stop” said the lieutenant forcefully. Trowler looked at him. The sergeant had changed over this last couple of days. So had Sutton. A look of haunted zeal was in their eyes, as if they were no longer their own men but belonged entirely to an ideal which they'd embraced. Trowler had always been the calm voice, the placid sergeant, a man of prodigious strength matched by his compassion. Now he was a fanatic, a wandering soldier who moved forward with great purpose to a destination that only he seemed to know. I don't know why we'd followed him and Sutton so blindly these last couple of days. Perhaps it had been nice to see someone who had some idea of what they were doing.

The wave of events which had destroyed our world and carried us along since were dizzying in their embrace. It was easy to be swallowed by apathy, to follow for the sake of following, to dog the steps of the person in front of you simply because they were there. Taskers patience with such an approach had come to an end.

“We need to keep moving” said Trowler patiently.

“No, we don't. What needs to happen is for you to remember who is in charge.” Taskers voice got louder as he went on. “What needs to happen is for you two to explain to me what is going on with our friend there and where on this cursed earth you think you're going. I am the lieutenant...”.

“Emmanuel” started Trowler raising his hand and pointing at Tasker. That was as far as he got. Taskers hand lashed out like a knife and chopped into the sergeants neck. Trowler staggered back clutching at his throat. Then he ran in aiming a clumsy roundhouse at Tasker. The fist failed to connect, the arm was grabbed and twisted with a crack that made me wince.

Trowler fell to his knees with the pain, the last thing he saw was Taskers knee as it came smashing up into his face. I felt sorry for the sandy haired sergeant as he fell down into the leaves holding onto the remnants of his nose. The silence was total in its grip. Only Tasker had the guts to break it, he was in charge of the moment.

It was to me he looked as he spoke. “Well, it's nice to clear the air” said he. I suddenly saw all his weakness laid bare. Violence was his only tool, he'd been so reluctant to use it until this point, all his life he must have seen the dead ends down which it had led him. There was such a relief on his face, it had all worked out, and all he needed to do was hurt people.

Behind him I saw Dan Sutton lift his arm. Tasker was still smiling. The bullet was travelling at around eight hundred miles an hour as it burst from the middle of his forehead dragging with it a trail of mushy brains and tiny skull fragments. The lieutenant died smiling as I was splattered with gore. Still he grinned as he fell to the ground, down into the leaves where he would rot with everything else.

“Dan, my God no” shouted Mark Kirby who scrabbled at his waist frantically trying to draw his own Glock 17 from its holster. Mark Kirby had three daughters. Three more lost children. He had a cat which he'd been rather unoriginal in naming Whiskers. His wife was a secretary at a solicitors. His Grandfather had been in the merchant navy. He had a fear of wolves and he enjoyed quad biking. The facts regarding Mark Kirby could fill a book, but none of them mattered, and none of them could help stop the bullet which went in through his throat and came out the back of his neck.

He fell to his knees and uselessly tried to halt the spraying blood. Dan Sutton marched over to him, jammed the already hot barrel of the Glock into his old friends eye socket and pulled the trigger, feeding yet more grey matter to the forest.

Patricia had looked on dumbfounded. I don't think her training had covered what to do when your fellow soldiers start murdering each other following a zombie apocalypse. She sucked in a few deep breaths and started to back away. I think she'd made a decision. She looked at Dan Sutton. At those cold blue eyes. She knew what was coming next. As she started to lift the barrel a form reared up next to her.

Trowlers hunting knife bit deep into her arm eliciting a horrible scream as the gun fell to the floor. There is no such thing as a comforting scream, but there is something about the scream of a woman, the giver of life, the sound of terror carried in every octave. A backhanded punch sends Patricia falling to the ground. Trowler has his back to me as he climbs on top of her. I see the serrated hunting knife plunging down time and time again throwing globules and strips of blood high into the air. Screams become gurgles, gurgles turn to one last breath before the silence. Even then he does not stop.

After an age he rises, the crimson man. There is a huge smile on his face, a twisted contorted grin. I prepare myself as best I can.

“Make it quick” is all that the pathetic form who is me can muster as I drop to the ground. I see the sergeants red boots come into view as I gaze at the ground.

“Leave him”. I would do anything to have gone back in time to a place where I could end my life, just so as not to have to hear him speak. The words are like poison in my ear, I vomit just at their uttering. When the retching is done I look up. The injured man is off his stretcher. His skin is aglow with life, thin silvery veins give light to the life there. He looks like Tasker, it takes me a minute to realise that a part of him is Tasker. I look over at the lieutenants mutilated body and sure enough it is evident that this creature has carved off as much of his face as was possible and is now wearing it.

I'm idly aware of Sutton and Trowler stripping the bodies of the others, taking from them anything that might be useful. The green eyes have me, I am caught in their hate filled tractor beam.

Finally Trowler hauls me to my feet. “Go with the Harlequin” he says gruffly.

“What?” I get a back hand to the face for that.

“Go with him, understand?” he bellows. I nod. I whimper. I am so sorry. I am vaguely aware of my gun being removed from the holster at my side as Trowler and Sutton lope off into the woods. The bodies are left to lay where they have fallen.