Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) (33 page)

‘Is he dead?’ said Daniel. He held the stick I’d brought in. The one I’d hit Gregg with and that he’d just used on Nico.

‘I hope so,’ I said.

D
ANIEL
HELPED
ME
RELEASE
Becky. He took the gag out of her mouth and she gasped and muttered her thanks. I undid her hands and went to Casper. He seemed to have passed out so I got Daniel to help me move him onto the sofa. He lay there taking deep breaths as the building creaked around us, unstable after what the rocket had done.

‘What happens now?’ said Becky.

‘Be sensible to get away from here.’

Not that the bike was an option anymore. Nor was the van. I stared out at the blackened Transit. I’d not even thought about that when I’d torched it. The flames had died down leaving it a burnt shell. The trees beside it were charred but it hadn’t spread through the woods. I wondered about the man we’d tied up. He’d be all right. Fellas like him always were.

‘Why did you come back?’ Becky gave me one of those looks again. Looks I couldn’t work out. But then a chunk of the ceiling collapsed sending plaster all over us.

‘We need to go,’ I said.

I took Casper under the arms while Becky and Daniel grabbed his feet. We carried him round Nico’s body and over Gregg’s.
 

‘What about him?’ she said.

‘Leave him.’ I wasn’t going to waste energy on Gregg. We’d already left him for dead once before. One more time wouldn’t matter. We carried on out, over rubble and past what was left of the other man.
 

We lay Casper by the Eblis. Becky slumped down beside the tank and Daniel put his hand to Casper’s brow.
 

I went back in to grab some bits and pieces.

The building groaned around me, masonry falling from the outside and chunks of wall dropping off inside. The bags were still at the far end of the dining room, half emptied so I chucked stuff back in before grabbing them and going into the lounge. I went over to Nico and felt through his coat finding another couple of magazines for his gun. I slid them into my pocked and shouldered the rifle, picking up the bags again. A section of the chimney breast fell onto the floor so I made for the doorway. There was a great crack as I left and the far side of the lounge collapsed outwards. I ran out, over to the Eblis, dragging the bags with me. The building fell with a clatter and clonks. Thuds and crashes. A final thump that send out a great cloud of dust.

I looked back at the hotel, now a shapeless pile of wreckage. Nico and Gregg were under the mounds of bricks and wood. As were the other men. It was a better resting place than they deserved.

Becky and Daniel tended to Casper as I retrieved my bag from the tree and checked through the wet contents. I laid out damp banknotes across the warm flank of the Eblis. I still had spares from the bike but I chucked these into the undergrowth.

Becky came over. ‘Thanks for your help.’

I shrugged and stretched Gehenna’s documents on the tank’s hull.

‘What are you planning to do now?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Do you think you’ll come with us?’
 

‘How’s Casper?’

‘I’ve given him more morphine. He’s resting.’

He looked ropy as hell but he was still alive. We all were. There was a noise from the building. I half expected Nico and Gregg to rise out of the debris. Start shooting at us. But it was only another section of wall falling down.
 

‘So?’ said Becky.

I had bike or other means of getting around so it seemed I was stuck with them.
 

I took the plans out of my bag and set them out on the ground. The waxed surface had resisted the water reasonably well. There were charts of the lochs and waterways around the coast of western Scotland. And the sub itself with all those decks and cabins. The great engines that could run for decades; weapons that could wipe out city after city.
 

‘When you get to Gehenna, what are you going to do.’

She leant back against the Eblis, tapped it. ‘Blow it. With this.’

‘Serious?’

‘At least, that’s the plan.’

‘Why?’

She laughed. ‘Why?’

‘Why should you care?’

‘Look, are you coming or not?’

‘What makes you think the sub is still there?’

‘If it’s anywhere, it’s there.’

I laughed. ‘Jesus.’

For a moment neither of us spoke. As more bricks clunked off the hotel.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Are you coming with us?’

‘Why should I trust you?’

‘You know it all now.’

‘Really?’

She nodded.
 

‘I don’t know.’

‘What else would you do, Trent?’

‘I suppose.’

’So you’re in?’

‘Seems that way.’

‘Good. An extra pair of hands will be useful.’ Maybe she smiled at this. If she did it was soon gone.

We hefted Casper into the Eblis, loaded in our gear and set off.
 

As we headed along the track the hotel fell in on itself again, now a wreck of tumbled stone and bust window frames. Beside the burnt out Transit the other man stood up with an untied rope in his hand. He stared at us as we drove out onto the road.

We went further into the highlands. The roads were no more than gravel tracks, the tarmac broken in hard winters. Becky focussed on the route, checking a map now and then. Casper lay asleep in the bottom of the vehicle and Daniel sat back in his seat, relaxed.

We were going north west now, towards the coast and the loch where Gehenna was supposed to be. I was curious about the sub, what it looked like in the metal. It seemed hard to believe it was still there after all these years.
 

We drove along the road through the mountains as the light faded. The engines droned and the shadows darkened around us. The cab smelled of sweat and smoke. Dried blood and pine needles.
 

Sections of the road had been washed away leaving loose stones. The tank pitched over the surface and slowed but didn’t stop.
 

We took a left fork and a soon dark expanse of water appeared.

‘Is this it?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Becky. ‘This is Loch Lomond. The top end. Loch Fyne is what we are after.’

Loch Lomond went on for miles and miles. Dark water with trees at side. Then we turned off to the right and soon passed another stretch of water.
 

‘And this?’ I said.
 

‘This is the sea, Trent.’
 

It was at our side for a few miles. After that we drove on through featureless hills. Dark shapes that hemmed us in. There was no sign of anyone. It seemed hard to believe that the sub would still be up here. In this wasteland.

Then we came to a sign on the roadside, recent, homemade. It said BEWARE. No more than that. More signs appeared in the Eblis’ lamps, some bright coloured, welcoming, others as warnings. Becky slowed the vehicle and stopped at one. It was a tall post with cockeyed writing on the board saying TURN BACK SINNERS.

‘What’s up?’ This didn’t look like reivers, just the usual stuff from cranks and crackpots.
 

‘I’m not sure. Just a feeling.’ She clambered up and opened the hatch, stepping out. I grabbed Nico’s gun and joined her.

‘Where we going?’ said Daniel.

‘Just stay here,’ I said.

The air was still, with a cool dampness that came down from the treeless hills. The road wound off into the distance, lit by the Eblis’ lights. Becky went over to the sign, reading it and running her fingers over it. I joined her, keeping an eye on the hills for signs of movement, in case the people who’d written it were nearby.

‘You all right?’ I said.

She raised her hand. ‘Listen.’

There was a low throb from the tank but little else. ‘I can’t hear anything —’

‘Shush.’ She put her finger to my lips, the first time she’d come near me in the last day.

Then I heard it, way off, faint, drumming sound and voices, cheers and shouts. Laughter.

Becky got back into the Eblis. She turned the headlamps off. I saw the light in the distance, at the end of the road and over a hill. A glow on the horizon of reds and yellows.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘That’s where we’re going. Seems Gehenna has built up its own community.’

I joined her back in the Eblis.

‘Everything okay?’ said Daniel.

‘Yeah,’ I said. But I wasn’t sure.

When we moved off I set my monitor to infrared, waiting for figures to emerge from the dark and descend on us. Sometimes I spotted something, a shape that disappeared, possibly an animal, but nothing clear.
 

The road made its way along open ground, great mountains sitting at our side, rounded shadows on the screens. We passed a monument to someone, now defaced with animal skulls and bones.

There in the distance was the Loch. Blacker than everything around it.

We came to a sign. It said Gehenna City.
 

‘Looks like we’re at the right place,’ I said.

‘It does.’ She eased the tank to a stop.

The road ran straight ahead, across the moors towards a bridge that led to two three-metre pillars with massive doors between them. To the side of each bonfires burned. The doors were set in a heavy fence of tree trunks that disappeared off into the distance.

‘That bridge will never take our weight,’ said Becky.
 

‘And there’ll be guards on the gate,’ I said.

We moved off at crawler speed, a low hum from the motors.

‘Where are you going?’

‘See if there’s another way in.’ She swung us right across the soft moors, slowing as we pitched across the rough surface. We skirted round the area marked with bonfires and picked up speed. Once we were well away from the gates she turned towards back the town. Aimed for the buildings and noise.
 

‘We might be able to stand on the tank,’ she said. ‘See over the fence and get some idea of the layout.’

Then the Eblis pitched forward. It fell, nose first.

She swore and pulled the levers into reverse, the Eblis’ motors’ roaring. I hung on tight as the engines screamed and we slid down into something. Somewhere dark and deep.

W
ITH
THE
ENGINES
FLAT
out Becky hauled back on the levers. The vehicle bounced and tracks churned at the ground outside. We were still nose down, canted at a steep angle. Daniel covered his ears and Casper rolled around as the tank jerked and lurched. One of the monitors showed faint light behind us while the other revealed the thing we were slipping into, black and featureless. The vehicle was at full power and warning lights lit in front of Becky but she ignored these, still hanging onto the controls.
 

Then the Eblis began to move backwards, slowly at first then picking up speed as the tracks gripped. Becky eased off the power as we moved onto solid ground. Once we were a few metres back she stopped the motors, shaking her head as she looked at the instruments.
 

‘What happened?’ said Daniel.

‘Thought I was going to fry the motors.’

‘What the hell was that?’ I said.
 

Becky stared at her screen but I climbed up through the tank, opening the hatch and getting out. The sounds of raised voices, drums and music were now clear and there were buildings outlined in the distance, beyond the fence and backlit by fire. Carefully I walked ahead of the Eblis, its tracks clogged with earth and front end sprayed with mud it had kicked up. A few yards in front of it there was a pit, ten foot wide and nearly as deep. The bottom of it was lined with wooden spikes.
 

Becky and Daniel came and stood next to me. ‘Nice,’ she said.

We walked along the edge. It was the same as far as we could see, disappearing off across the moorland in a wide arc, surrounding the town with its barricade, more a trench than pit. In places it was even wider and deeper than the section nearest to us but there was no point where we’d be able to cross.

Daniel stared at the fire-lit buildings. ‘I don’t like it here.’

‘We need to get going,’ I said. There was no sign of anyone but we’d made some noise. Maybe they’d not heard it over the drumming but there was no point risking it.

We returned to Eblis and Becky drove us off across the moors. Well away from the town, behind a small hummock. She pulled out her map and shifted it around. Jabbed her finger at it. ‘This is where we are.’

There was a small town marked on the edge of the loch, nothing like the size of Gehenna City. He had some other name on the map. Something tame and Scottish. The town’s new name suggested that the sub was, or had been, here. And the trench implied that the locals didn’t want outsiders coming in.