After it Happened Boxset: 1-6 Omnibus Edition Page 6

  He stopped and steadied himself. It was worrying how quickly he was getting used to being alone. He got out of the car, leaving the carbine in the cab but locking it with the remote fob.

  As he approached the woman, she turned calmly towards him and casually picked up an over/under shotgun that was resting on the gatepost.

  “Hi. I’m Dan,” he said. She studied him with almost a sarcastic look, making him feel a little self-conscious about his action man outfit.

  “Hello, Dan, I’m Sera,” she replied. She had a slightly country twang to her accent, as though she had been raised somewhere else but had been naturalised into the countryside.

  “What are you doing here, Sarah?” he asked.

  “It’s Sera. S-E-R-A. And I’m looking after these horses, which is plainly obvious if you cared to use your eyes.”

  She fixed him with a stare that almost dared him to question her. He guessed she was mid to late thirties. She had natural dark blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and horse riders’ thighs, he realised guiltily and quickly looked away. He saw her vehicle parked inside the field by the small stable block. It was a Nissan Pathfinder, liveried with a liberal amount of mud and the details of a veterinary surgery.

  “Are you a vet?” Dan blurted out.

  “Yes,” Sera replied. “What are you?”

  He was almost tempted to introduce himself as First Ranger, but decided that he was in danger of too much scorn already. “I’m part of a group of survivors based a couple of hours away. I’m looking for people to join us,” he added hopefully.

  “Not me, thanks. I have things to do here,” she replied briskly, but softened the blow with a lopsided smile and rested the shotgun against the fence again.

  He tried to convince her. Pleaded with her. He told her of the idea to find a permanent place to live, to raise livestock.

  “We need you, don’t you see?” he said.

  “Maybe. But I don’t necessarily need you, do I?” she replied. “I’m sorry, the idea seems nice and everything, but I have plenty to do here.”

  That seemed to be the end of the negotiations as far as she was concerned. Dan reckoned that she was living there, and wondered what he could do to convince her to come back with him. He turned to her again, to try to reason some more to see if he could wear her down.

  She sighed, conveying a great deal of annoyance, and picked up the shotgun for a second time. It was time to leave.

  Dan got the hint and walked away backwards. “If you change your mind, come and find us.” He asked if she knew where the town they set up camp in was, and gave directions to find them.

  Sera seemed not to be listening, but she watched him off the property. He had no choice but to continue his journey alone.

  THOSE KINDS OF PEOPLE

  Penny was happy in a way. She had purpose, and she had people who needed organising. She felt that she had to maintain that semblance of normality, or the one crack in the cup would shatter the whole tea set. She worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep the house of cards she was building in one piece, not without the support of the stronger people.

  She knew she needed him, and hoped that he felt he needed her too. She just wasn’t accustomed to playing second fiddle to anyone. She’d been a head teacher for almost a decade now; it was her life.

  She was happy to have James and Kevin out looking for supplies. She was certainly glad of having the ever-smiling Neil and the more mysterious but slightly intimidating and often recalcitrant Daniel. She was overjoyed to have Leah; a life without children wasn’t something she had ever considered possible, even though she had never had her own. She was even glad to have Andrew, as weak-willed and malleable as he was, because at least he was no threat to them and he didn’t expect a free ride.

  She was more concerned with some of their new arrivals, however.

  Of the four, Jimmy and Kev had brought two back. They were lovely people, and she was glad to have them.

  About two hours after Dan and the others had left, two others strolled up to the camp. They were drinking beer from cans, and she thought they were both already drunk, which at that time of the day, she thought was utterly common of them.

  Commonness was an insult she deemed quite serious.

  Their clothing seemed new, as though they had just smashed a window for it the day before. She could hardly judge them for that in her new clothes and boots, but when she did it, it seemed far less like theft than the feeling that oozed from these two.

  She faced a conundrum: Turn away two survivors because she felt they were undesirable, or allow them to stay and see if they could be helpful to anyone other than themselves.

  After all, who was she to decide a person’s fate? The power of life and death was not hers to serve out, Penny felt. She was not so naïve to realise that turning survivors away from shelter and safety was tantamount to a death sentence.

  The two undesirables were greeted without prejudice. Luckily, Neil was back in the camp at the time, having brought back two caravans and another Land Rover with Andrew. Their set-up and plan was explained to the people around them. They did not introduce themselves until asked.

  The female was called Chloe and had her hair pulled back tight and stuck down. She had big hoop earrings and was dripping with freshly looted jewellery.

  The male was called Callum. He stooped and wouldn’t stand up straight. He couldn’t keep still, for that matter; he was constantly shuffling his feet or fidgeting with his face. His eyes were always scanning everything too. He had the look of a thief, decided Penny, and then silently chided herself for being judgemental.

  Penny asked politely about their qualifications and experience. Her judgemental feelings burned brightly when she found that neither had ever worked or been educated past the compulsory stages. She couldn’t help it: She thought these two were bad news, both about twenty years old and utterly useless to the society of last month, let alone that of today.

  They were allocated a caravan and invited to take some time to rest before they helped Andrew and the others load the supply lorry. They went into the store after a while and Penny thought that she might actually be wrong, and that they would help the group.

  The couple brought back by Jimmy and Kev were her kind of people. They were in their late fifties; Cedric was retired and drove community ambulances part-time and his wife Maggie was a dinner lady. Both caravan enthusiasts, they had loaded up their own 4x4 and caravan and were gathering more supplies when Maggie literally bumped into Kev. There had been some initial screaming, but they came back to the camp and fitted in well.

  Penny had busied herself with preparing food and looked up to see Andrew, Cedric, Leah, and Maggie struggling out of the shop with trolleys full of bottled water. She asked where Chloe and Callum were, and received timid shrugs all around. Clearly, something had happened and none of them wanted to say.

  “Please tell me what happened,” Penny asked gently.

  None of them wanted to say, to rock the boat, until Maggie finally blurted out that they asked them to help and the two just swore at them. “They haven’t lifted a finger,” she complained.

  Penny smiled and told the four that they should take a break.

  She marched into the store and eventually found Chloe and Callum in the alcohol aisle. Both were drunk and eating crisps as they sprawled on the floor in a sea of discarded cans and packets.

  She stood in the aisle with her hands on her hips, waiting patiently for them to notice her. She saw them glance in her direction and both laughed. She drew herself up and loudly cleared her throat. This drew more giggles from them, so she stalked towards them and asked loudly, “What do you two think you are doing?”

  “What?” said Callum, his voice dripping with scorn and disrespect. “We do what we want, yeah? What you gonna do? Fuck off, yeah.”

  This made Chloe laugh and agree, “Step off, old lady.”

  Both had that fake “street” accent that Penny had heard the more unfortunate children in her school use. Defeated, ridiculed, and irate, she paced angrily out of the shop and considered calling Neil back to deal with them. Without James and Kevin, she doubted she could force them to do anything, so she decided to wait until that night when Daniel returned. Hopefully.

  ~

  Callum had never worked. He had never done anything to benefit anyone but himself, and what he did do usually hurt someone else but he never saw that as his problem. He had spent his life since his mid-teens in and out of young offenders’ institutes, and he saw prison as nothing but another “tour” where he met old friends.

  He was a parasite, and Chloe was no better. They were thieves. Lazy people who believed that the world owed them everything, and if someone said no to them, then they threatened and intimidated them until they got their own way.

  Their parasitic lifestyle was about to meet an abrupt end, and neither of them had the slightest inkling.

  ~

  As dinner was ready, Dan blessedly drove up towing a small army trailer. Penny walked to intercept him, and Neil joined her, having been briefed efficiently by her on their now resident squatters. They hadn’t seen Chloe or Callum since the incident, and assumed they were still inside.

  Dan wasn’t given time to explain what had happened with his trip, but the new equipment didn’t go unnoticed. They quickly filled him in about their troublesome new additions, and Penny saw his face descend into anger.

  “New rule: work together or get out. They’re leaving, now.” He turned to Neil and said, “No guns, I’ll deal with this.”

  Dan unlocked the padlock on the trailer and threw in all his new equipment. He went to meet the impending confrontation carrying no weapons, but was armoured in a temper that neither Neil nor Penny had seen before. The temper was nothing new to him; he had learned to channel it, to focus it, to use it. He’d spent years dealing with scum like this, and now there were no disproportionate rules in place to protect them from him.

  He stomped towards the shop, ignoring everyone on the way as his adrenaline-fuelled muscles tensed in anticipation. He rounded the entrance to see Andrew flat against the wall, white with fear, and a chav leaning up into his face.

  “You,” Dan growled. “Put him down. Now.”

  Every word from Dan dripped with threat. Callum was either very brave, drunk, or had no natural sense of self-preservation.

  “Who the fuck do you think you is, yeah?” he droned. A carving knife was produced in Callum’s left hand, and he tried his hardest to swagger in Dan’s direction. Had Dan still been carrying firearms, the situation would have formed differently, but Dan wanted this idiot to think he had the advantage, that Dan was yet another person he could bully and intimidate as he had his whole life. Andrew ran from the shop in panic.

  “Where’s your slag?” Dan barked at Callum, stopping him in his tracks.

  Rage contorted Callum’s face at the insult. The anger destabilised him, made him reckless, as Dan knew it would.

  “Chloe!” Callum shouted, causing her to appear from around the corner with an armful of cigarette packets. “This fool thinks he’s a big man. He’s going to apologise for calling you a slag before I cut him up.”

  “No, I’m not. She’s a slag, and you’re a little boy playing hard man. If you both leave now, I’ll let you go,” Dan said in a very matter-of-fact way.

  He knew full well how this would play out, and he wanted it to be public. He wanted Callum to be shamed in front of the group, and he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to reinforce a learning point.

  Dan was calm whereas Callum was shaking with anger. He turned his back on the boy with the blade and walked outside, where Andrew’s panicked flight had drawn a crowd. The whole group was there to watch, and as Dan looked along the line of scared and confused faces, Callum erupted from the shop, helpfully shouting in rage to tell Dan exactly where he was. Screams and shouts of alarm erupted from the group.

  Dan stepped quickly to the side and kicked out at Callum’s knee as he passed. He dropped the knife and rolled around the floor, shocked and in pain. Dan walked around him, kicking the knife back to his grasp. Callum caught his breath, picked up the knife again in his left hand, and lunged for him. Dan blocked the lunge, driving a forearm into Callum’s chest, but Dan kept hold of him to stop him falling down. Dan pushed him away and told him again, “I gave you the chance to leave unhurt. What happens now is on your head.”

  Callum changed tactic and started to slash wildly at Dan, who retreated one pace at a time until Callum went to cut down at him from height. Dan stepped in, blocking his arm with both hands and seizing Callum’s wrist painfully, forcing the hand to bend and stretching the ligaments tight. The pain and the loss of power in his grip made Callum drop the useless knife from his limp fingers.

  Dan drove his left knee hard under Callum’s diaphragm, taking his legs out from under him. Dan kept hold of the wrist and hand and stepped into Callum, spinning him over his back and slamming him to the floor. As Callum went down, Dan turned and went to his knees with him, folding Callum’s left arm over his own arm and locking it off. He readjusted his position and leaned back, causing a crack to sound from Callum’s joints almost as loud as his scream. Callum went pale and fainted from the pain.

  Chloe was still in the doorway, open-mouthed at what she had witnessed. She seemed unsure what to do, and as Dan stood and brushed his hands off, he fixed her with a look.

  “Take one of the cars from the car park and leave. Now.”

  She hesitated, looking between the writhing Callum and Dan.

  “Believe me, I have a problem hitting a woman, but when it comes to the safety of these people, I will make an exception for you,” he said coldly.

  Chloe snapped out of her trance and ran over to Callum. He had come around and was crying. She helped him up and half dragged him over to the car park. Neil, ever reliable, threw her a set of keys to an old Peugeot they had found on an unfortunate member of former shop staff and the group watched as they left.

  A stunned silence still reigned over the group, and Dan realised they were all looking at him. He saw a mixture of smiles and looks of relief and gratitude, but also some shock and fear too. He was still fired up and didn’t think that now was the time for a speech, but he had to address the fears he saw before they grew into doubts about being part of the group.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he lied, “but I will go to any lengths to protect you all from people like that.” He gestured towards the fading sound of the Peugeot’s engine. “It had to be done that way. If they knew we had guns, they would be back to take them. We can’t afford to trust our safety and our future to people like that; they were nothing to society last week, and trust me, they are more of a drain now.”

  He walked away, hopeful that he hadn’t gone too far in proving his point and removing a problem. He caught a look from Leah as he passed, and swore that she was hiding a grin.

  Neil jogged and caught up with him, and he turned to see Penny walking briskly towards him. She had too much decorum to run. Neil was smiling, clearly impressed with the demonstration, but he could not be sure that Penny would be amused.

  She stopped short of him, and straightened herself to imply formality. “You have my thanks for doing that. I agree that those people had no place here, but I must insist that you do not repeat such behaviour in front of Leah. She must not think that violence is the answer to problems.”

  Dan was inclined to agree with her, but his heart was still beating fast. He rounded on her and drew himself up similarly. “Make no mistake, Penny, there are times when violence is the only solution. Without people here willing to put themselves out, we will all be dead within the year.” He softened, realising from her look that he had upset her. “I am sorry, genuinely. Not that I did it, but that some of the group would be scared by it. But don’t you see it also proves what I am willing to do to people who will try and hurt us?”

  Penny swallowed, unwilling to provoke an argument to make her point any more clearly. “Yes, I understand. Dinner is waiting, and I have Leah keeping an eye on it. Please tell us how your trip went.”

  Dan gestured for them to follow towards his new trailer. As he retrieved the key from his pocket, he told them the story of what happened at the camp.

  “The soldier knew his business; if he wanted to kill me, I would never have known he was there. We need people like that, but he wouldn’t entertain joining us. He gave me these and told me never to come back.” He opened the trailer and shone his torch inside, resulting in a low whistle from Neil. Penny looked alarmed and her mouth hung open.

  Dan retrieved his vest and carbine and locked the trailer again. He gave a spare key for the padlock to Neil and decided aloud on some more rules.

  “Only selected people will carry firearms. We decide on who they are. As it is, I don’t want anyone but us touching any of these, and all the other weapons stay in here. Penny, you have a shotgun for emergencies here. Neil, I want you to keep your Glock with you at all times and take whatever you want from here when you go out. Other than that, nobody has the experience to use one of these, which makes anyone carrying one without any training more of a danger to themselves and others.”

  Dan flashed back to a conversation he’d had with Jimmy the day they met, when he asked him about guns. Jimmy laughed, and said he’d be happier with a crowbar and a Kev.

  Dan waited for a nod of agreement from both of them and walked away to his caravan. He heated some water on the stove and poured soap in a washing-up bowl. He stripped down and washed himself off, using the water to shave, as the stubble was itching. He decided he should probably just give up and grow a beard in the long term.

  He dressed in fresh clothes, black combats, boots, and a black polo shirt. Feeling clean always made him feel more refreshed. Drinking a bottle of water, he came out to join the group, where Neil met him and introduced him to Cedric and Maggie. They had helpfully brought their own accommodation, and were towing it properly with a relatively new Discovery. It dawned on him that if this group had a sponsorship deal, it would definitely be with Land Rover.