The Survivors of Bastion (Fall of Earth Book 1) (3 page)

              My father had undergone it – he was buried in a little section of greenery behind our yard, amongst some small trees. For some reason the rest of us had gone uninfected. We had all demonstrated some immunity to it, and this immunity had a 50/50 chance of transmitting to the next of kin of anybody who had it at the time. While my mother had the gene, my father had not – Robbie and I had both inherited it by some fateful chance.

              My mother visited my father’s grave periodically, and she had done so with less and less frequency over the years until finally she only attended it to tidy it and say a few words.

              The past can fade, but it never falls away completely. I think in some ways that’s a good thing.

              Carl and I finally arrived at the south gate. I call it a gate – it was a small door in between two sections of the wall of cars. Not as cool as something in a medieval castle, but if anybody made an effort to invade they would be bottlenecked, and we would have the advantage.

              Function over fashion.

              I undid the lock and pulled the chain aside, shouting up to Larry, a 54 year-old with not-so-great hearing who had currently pulled guard duty for this side.

              ‘Larry… LARRY!’

              On the shout he turns and looks over at me nodding his up to ask what’s wrong. I make a rough signal with my hands to represent locking the gate after we’ve gone, and he nods with understanding.

              ‘You sure you don’t want the Ranger?’

              ‘No, I think we’ll walk. It’s a lovely day for it!’

              Larry laughed and nodded, waving us off.

              Carl and I headed out the door, and after shutting the door behind us I found myself, once again, in unclaimed territory.

Chapter Two

Fawn and Doe

The space beyond our walls was odd. We set up barriers in the real world, true, but these also represent barriers in our mind. Crossing a certain line that we have placed ourselves, no matter how insignificant, changes the way you think. Moving into the zone outside of Bastion, I found myself on guard and on the defensive, my eyes scanning our environment for anything that might present a threat.

              On this side of the wall there was a huge field filled with wheat that we tried to keep in abundance as best we could. Back when I attended school as a kid I remember my teacher telling us that bread was one of the only foods on the planet that almost everybody from every culture, background and walk of life ate because it was so simple to make. It was a notion that our community tried to embody, not because of something I had been told as a kid, but because it turned out to be very, very true. Every one of us ate it, but then we did have much of a choice.

The fields stretched on for many miles beyond where we were headed, with the occasional patches of trees and sections of forest dotted about amongst them. These were the most dangerous – they presented a spot where anything could lurk in the darkness, waiting for us, plotting our downfall.

              Many might have called me paranoid, but I didn’t trust anyone completely – not Hayley on the other wall who I spent the most time with by far out of everybody here, not my mother, not even Robbie. Maybe that’s a little harsh, but Henrietta once told me that even while my Dad had been alive, they didn’t trust each other 100%.

              People faltered, and I always strived to remember that.

              Carl and I set off through the fields through the dry grass, heading along the carved out path in the greenery towards the crop field. Carl stayed ahead as I kept a lookout around us, he carving through any shrubbery that happened to get in our way, though there was little of it.

              All of us had grown used to not speaking for extended periods of time, but sometimes it was nice to just hear another person’s voice – that early morning it was Carl’s voice that I would be hearing.

              ‘Tommy?’

              ‘Yeah?’

              ‘Can I ask you something? Just between you and me?’

              ‘Sure, long as we keep on our way.’

              ‘Okay… What do you think of Maria?’

              Maria lived in a house with her older brother in Bastion. They were both impeccable farmers who tended to a large patch of crops in their own back yard, Marcus, her brother, in particular. Maria had a decent knowledge of mechanical constructs and had helped us put together a water irrigation system. She was smart, and about Carl’s age – as a result I knew immediately what he was getting at, but I wasn’t going to let it on.

              ‘She’s all right,’ I said, ‘a great member of our community. Why?’

              ‘Oh, nothing… I was just wondering about asking her if she… If she…’

              ‘You were gonna ask her out?’ I said.

              ‘Pretty much… Kind of… What do you think?’

              ‘You’re a little older than me,’ I said, so you can probably better remember how these things went on TV and movies when we were younger. I did watch a shitload of TV, don’t get me wrong, but still… We don’t exactly have a diner where you can take her out to.’

              ‘I know… I just thought we could do something some time.’

              ‘All right,’ I said, Carl slashing through the shrubbery with a little more force as we reached the next field. ‘Well, I don’t remember a whole lot from TV, but I do remember this old show where these people went to a beach, and one says to the other, ‘would you date me if I was the last man on Earth?’ and the girl is like ‘maybe…’ So think of this situation in that context.’

              ‘You are such a fucking asshole, Tommy,’ Carl laughed, sheathing his knife as the field levelled out.

              ‘Look, I’m sorry…’ I said genuinely, ‘I’ll have a chat with Marcus when I next see him. But you are thinking of starting a relationship with a girl whose brother is a farmer, and seems to get bigger and bigger by the day despite the fact that we don’t all exactly eat fulfilling diets.’

              ‘I know…’ Carl said, ‘Hey… Thanks, Tommy.’

              ‘Don’t mention it. You see anything up ahead we should be worrying about?’

              ‘Nope.’

              ‘All right. Let’s keep moving.’

              The fields were separated by aging, rotted fences that stretched out across the countryside like patchwork quilts. I had remembered the bigger kids before the outbreak coming into these fields to play games, and the people who would walk their dogs along the outskirts through the beaten paths that we had regularly tread on now that they were around to help us no longer.

              My mind was somewhere else, something I shouldn’t ever have done – but it was then that I walked into the back of Carl. He had come to a complete stop and stared straight ahead of himself.

              ‘What?’ I asked.

              ‘Shh…’ He muttered, holding up a hand, ‘There…’

              I brought myself to a stop, knowing that he had seen something, but not what. I followed his line of sight, trying to determine what it was that he was looking at exactly, when I saw it.

              In the next field, a particularly large one that had once been used by farmers from a nearby compound to grow out corn, were a pair of deer. There was a larger one and a smaller, but from this distance of about 100 yards that was all I could determine.

              ‘Drop,’ I muttered, and we both silently sank to our stomachs behind some tall grass, keeping the pair in view.

              I retrieved the rifle slung over my shoulder and removed the scope from it, sliding it out of its compartment. Sitting up a little, registering only the sound of Carl’s breathing and the steady, almost non-existent rustle of the wind on the grass, I closed one eye and looked through the scope.

              A doe and a fawn came into magnified view. They were grazing on the tall grass in the next field, their heads both ducked down as they indulged. For a few moments I watched them, taking part in this ingrained ritual in absolute peace. What it must have been like to be one of them, to have not even noticed the onset of the virus when it had struck but for a marked increase in silence thanks to the large absence of humanity.

              Eventually I lowered the scope, biting the inside of my lip.

              ‘What do we do?’ Carl asked.

              ‘The mother’s got more meat on her, but if I miss her head she’s still gonna have enough strength to get away. Fawn’s got less meat but even an off-shot will weaken her to the point that she won’t get far.’

              ‘Yeah…’ Carl said. ‘I haven’t eaten meat in a while.’

              ‘Me neither.’

              I paused thinking it over again.

              ‘The other thing,’ I continued, ‘is that the bigger will feed everybody tonight. It won’t be a whole lot, but everybody can have a little.’

              At this point I was just speaking to myself – I realised this when I glanced over at Carl, who had lowered his head a little.

              ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

              ‘I… Nothing, it’s just… We’re gonna kill it.’

              Carl didn’t say anything else, but the conflicted expression on his face said a lot more.

              ‘Look,’ I started, ‘we can carry on as we were and after a few steps they’ll both see us and take off, and tonight we can have an extra helping of raw beetroot. Don’t get me wrong, I love the beetroot we produce, but a man needs a good helping of animal sometimes.’

              ‘A good helping of animal?’ Carl asked.

              ‘Just something I remember my Dad saying once,’ I said, smiling and shaking my head. Rather than chase the thought up I slid the scope back into it’s compartment on the rifle and raised it up, looking through it once again, but now by the hold of the barrel and the trigger.

              They were still exactly where they had been. The crosshairs were directed between the two of them. I breathed steadily, waiting for the breeze to settle for a few seconds, but even if it did I would be shooting at nothing but air.

              Two inches of movement and I would change from the doe to the fawn, and back again. I aimed it at the youngling, right at the thick section of the neck – I had changed my mind about the focus point. If I went for the head and it decided to look up at a moment’s notice, the bullet would go flying past, and so would the sound. They would both take off, and we would go without meat. Aim for the neck, and it would still go down, even if we had to follow a trail of blood.

              I took a deep breath, hearing Carl hold his breath with anticipation by my side, and steadied the crosshair on the fawn’s neck.

              The seconds seemed to slow down incomprehensibly, and all that existed was the trigger and this unknowing animal, whose consciousness I was about to remove from existence.

              Quickly, without even realising that I had made the move myself, I switched to the doe, steadied myself faster than I ever had done before, and pulled the trigger.

              The sharp crack through the air registered to me milliseconds after I saw the whisper of blood in the air and the doe go down. It flailed desperately, trying to retain a grasp on what was happening as each second ticked on where I sat.

              Through the crosshairs I looked over at the fawn – for some reason it wasn’t going anywhere. It was jumping up and down on the spot, almost excitedly, as if panicking, not knowing what to do with itself.

              Without a second thought I moved the crosshairs towards it’s body, checked my aim, and pulled the trigger again.

              It went down onto it’s side, flailing together with the doe. That was the point at which I had to turn away, moving the gun to the side and clenching my eyes shut.

              ‘Shit… Nice work, Tommy…’

              I took a deep, heaving breath and let the adrenaline subside as I pushed my hands into the ground, trying to steady their shaking.

              ‘Not as easy as it looks after you’ve done it,’ I muttered, trying to smile and take away from the fact that I had just killed two creatures.

              I had to constantly remind myself that it was us or them, though. We survived, or they did. Any animal would have had no problem feeding on our bodies if we left ourselves to starve.

              It was a terrible thought that I quickly cast out of my mind as I brought myself to my feet, bringing the gun over my shoulder once again by the strap.

              ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s check it out.’

Chapter Three

Farm and Incident

Carl and I stood over the two carcasses, a low stream of blood trickling from both as they laid there in the grass, lifeless.

              ‘We need to get these back before they start to fester and completely go to waste,’ I said. ‘While we’re out here, though, I’d really prefer it if we could get on with the crops rather than make two trips…’

              ‘Hang on…’ Carl muttered, pulling off his rucksack and opening it. After a little rifling around he retrieved a large sheet of tarpaulin, folded up tightly and bound with elastic. He released the holdings and opened it up, spreading it out on the grass by the deer. ‘We can put them on these. Keep vermin from the ground away.

              ‘Good thinking,’ I said, smiling and nodding at him.

              With a little apprehension we managed it - the feel of the fur beneath my hands was something that I would never get used to, regardless of how many occasions similar animals had wandered into the fields before and had died at my hand.

              A few minutes later they were laid out.

              ‘Should we get them now?’ Carl asked.

              ‘No,’ I said, ‘they’re about to do a changeover on the lookout posts. Let’s leave them here, check up on the crops and head back. We can get the Ranger out to pick them up once we head back over. They’re too heavy to carry.’

              With one last look about amongst the field and the early morning breeze we set off in the direction of the crop field, which was just beyond a small makeshift bridge and down a slope about a quarter of a mile ahead.

              When it finally came into view and we looked out across, I had to take another second to admire the view of what we had created during our time here.

              The crop field was surrounded by fences, and stretched out about two square acres. It was cut off in even sections, each adorned with a different variety of plant, herb or, most importantly, fruit or vegetable array. Two of us headed out, twice a day, to check on things, and we were soon beginning to consider having a few people out here full time to keep watch over it all – it was vital to our survival.

              In the long-term, we couldn’t have been luckier in finding such a place as this. It benefited from the sun and the rain in equal, rich amounts, and was at the bottom of a small but steep inlet that kept it hidden from view, with trees surrounding it. We had come up with our own way of keeping the pests away over the years, with a variety of booby traps and the like. Every so often one would go off and a small team of us would have to head off in the dead of night to check it out, armed to the nines.

              Most of the time it was just a stray animal trying to make its way through the fence for a grand feast, but every so often we would find human remains.

              I didn’t like to think about who those people might have been, but if I did I always thought back to the notion of survive or be killed.

              Them or us.

              The only way in that didn’t warrant getting blown up or maimed was the way we were headed – a small entrance down some steps that led through a chained up door in the fence.

              Carl and I took the steps to the bottom steadily, one at a time, before we reached the door and I unlocked it, and we both headed inside.

              The farm was one of my favourite places in this small world that we occupied. It was something that we had built for ourselves. We were living off of the land, and we were doing it without industrial intervention or with the help of anybody else.

              Despite the fact that I still yearned for a more comfortable world, even fifteen years on from the outbreak, there was something noble in all of this that I couldn’t help but appreciate endlessly as I stood amongst the various plants that flourished and grew around me, waiting for their daily dose of sunlight.

              ‘What needs checking?’ Carl asked eagerly, looking around himself.

              ‘Corn, aubergine and carrots. Go give them a look, make sure they’re not getting too dehydrated. Haven’t had rain for a couple days. If any are ripe make sure to bag them, they’ll be good with the veal tonight. I’ll check the strawberries and the tomatoes. Meet back here when you’re good to go.’

              Without a word, Carl nodded and headed off into the field to check on the allocated crops, while I headed off to see mine.

              I took in the smells of the earth and the leaves, of all the things that were growing around me. It brought a smile to my face like nothing else did.

              When I reached the patch of strawberries and tomatoes I stopped to look them over, kneeling by the many rows that held thousands of them and brushing my fingers over the leaves. Like the deer, they were another thing in this world that didn’t need to answer to anything else, that could continue on growing and thriving of their own volition.

              The vices that struck the rest of the human race down did not affect so many other things.

              Everything looked well, and for the first time in a while I felt a moment of calm that washed over me there in the solitude of the field, amongst the many things that we grew there.

              Of course, that calmness wasn’t going to last for long.

              I hadn’t heard from Carl in a while, but when he shouted my name it came right after I heard the creaking of the gate opening – the one that we had both come through just a few minutes ago.

              ‘Tommy!?’ He yelled, and in a second I was bounding through rows of high plants until I finally reached the centre column where Carl stood. He looked shocked above anything, and when I looked in his direction for the second time that morning I saw why.

              Immediately, I swung the gun from over my shoulder and pointed the barrel straight ahead of us.

              Standing just inside the gate, in about as frozen a position as Carl, was a man I had never seen before. He was clad in dirtied clothes beneath a faded green utility jacket, with severely unkempt hair and a muddy face.

              He held his hands above his head – both were empty. He didn’t seem to have a weapon on him.

              ‘Freeze, motherfucker,’ I said, holding the gun steady in my hand. ‘Don’t move.’

              ‘All right, all right,’ he said hurriedly, both of his hands shaking as he held them above his head. ‘I don’t mean any harm.’

              ‘Neither do we, but saying it doesn’t mean much,’ I said, not taking my eyes off him. ‘Who are you?’

              ‘My name’s… My name’s Luke.’ – I could hear the southern accent in his voice straight away. – ‘I’ve been walking and just came by this field… Or is it your field? I’m real hungry is all…’

              ‘Damn right it’s our field,’ Carl said. I could hear the embitterment in his voice.

              ‘Don’t,’ I muttered to him, making sure that no volatile emotions came into this. It sounded stupid but anything could cause a slip-up at any moment, including acting and speaking on impulse. ‘Listen,’ I continued, shouting over to the man, ‘we don’t mean you any harm and it’s not our intention to hurt you, but you have to understand the position we’re in right now. We don’t know you. Now, my friend here is gonna come and make sure that you aren’t holding anything that might cause any harm to come to us-’

              ‘What?’ Carl exclaimed to me incredulously. ‘Are you serious?’

              ‘I’ll keep a gun on him the whole time,’ I whispered to Carl, still keeping my eyes on our visitor. ‘You’ll be fine.’

              Carl hesitated, looking at me and back at the man several times before taking a deep breath and finally edged his way towards the man, as if trying put the act off indefinitely.

              Within a few feet of the man Carl came to a stop, glancing back at me before turning back to him.

              ‘No hard feelings, buddy,’ he said, ‘I’m just gonna need to make sure you ain’t carrying anything dangerous.’

              Carl reluctantly brought his hands to the man’s arms – honestly, I didn’t expect anything to happen seeing as how shaken the guy looked, but if anything my ability to reason with reality always slipped when I needed it most, just like this morning with the deer.

              And right now.

              The moment Carl’s hands came into contact with the man, our visitor executed a series of movements that I couldn’t even pin down with my sight as I watched them. He moved so quickly that it was almost incomprehensible, but at the end of it all, and after Carl grunted with fear and confusion, he was holding my companion from behind with Carl’s own knife pressed to his throat.

              Things had gone downhill faster than I had ever seen. His movements had been so precise, I had no doubt that he had a military background.

              Within a second I raised the gun up and aimed, pointing the barrel at the man’s head.

              ‘Tommy!’ Carl shouted, but the man held him in place like a bird held down a worm it was about to destroy.

              ‘Don’t fucking move, Carl!’ I shouted. ‘Let him go!’

              ‘You just stay right where you are,’ the man muttered, pressing the knife against Carl’s throat. It was nowhere near enough to kill him, but I could already see the spots of blood appearing on his skin. ‘Now, I’m real fucking hungry, boy, and I plan on taking a few samples from this here farm of yours before I do anything else. So how’s about you lower that gun of yours, or I can just go ahead and water some of the plants with your buddy’s blood.’

              Carl clenched his eyes shut and let out a cry of fear. This was just how quickly things could go to shit.

              ‘So are you gonna lower that gun or not?’

              I thought back to the field, to that moment of hesitation. A myriad of possible courses played out in my head, the endless variety of ways that this could go.

              I looked Carl in the eye. I didn’t wink, or say anything, or make any kind of movement to signal to him. Right then, though, he caught his bearings and looked back at me, and after a few moments and some sharp, desperate breaths, he nodded at me and clenched his eyes shut.

              I took another quick, controlled breath and closed one eye, peering through the scope.

              With only a momentary glance at the future course of the bullet, I pulled the trigger.

              Things moved astonishingly quickly. Carl brought his arms up to his throat in an effort to protect himself from anything that might connect with him. The cracking sound of the gun sounded through the fields for the third time that morning as the round struck the invader right between the eyes. The knife fell from his head and stuck into the ground, handle up, shaking there for a moment before he fell backwards onto the dirt by the door.