Humanity: After It Happened Book 2 (4 page)

CHRISTMAS

Christmas loomed.  Pete and Jack had brought down four Canada geese ready for the large meal.  One of these had fallen into the lake and one of his dogs, either Tot or Dram as Dan could never tell them apart, almost froze to death after she jumped in and towed it to the shore.  Her more sensible sister took it from her on dry land and proudly presented it to their master. 

The wet dog was wrapped in a blanket and cuddled in shifts by the fire until Pete put an end to her pampering and took her back to work the next day, much to her disgust.

Extra hands were recruited into the kitchen to prepare, and Penny came to Dan with a rare request of frivolity.  She looked drawn and thinner in the face, but did her best to maintain her standards and presence.

“It’s something of a tradition, you see.” She started uncertainly “I’ve checked with Andrew and he is quite certain that we have no sherry at all” she carried on with blustery explanations but he stopped her, smiling.

“Penny, if you want sherry for Christmas I will go and get some on one condition” he said kindly

“Which is?” Penny asked, concerned

“That you check there are no more Christmas requests before I leave in an hour!” he replied.  She smiled and disappeared, returning thirty minutes later with a list.

Dan stood and unlocked his over-stocked armoury.  He took his M4 and loaded the standard five magazines he carried.  As he was slowly adding the 5.56 rounds to the magazines, Leah walked in carrying the very fat ‘Mollie’ who yowled threateningly at Ash.

Ash in response, as the savage animal he was, whimpered as he back-pedalled and hid behind Dan’s chair.  That would explain the scratches on his nose the day before.

“Kid?” Dan said to her “Put that fleabag down and help me, please”

“She isn’t a fleabag!” She replied indignantly, but put the cat on its perch anyway.

“Yes, he is.  Sera said so, and she would know because she got scratched giving him flea medication!” he said to goad her.

“She” answered Leah flatly, bored of the same needling comments from him.

He slid a Sig to her and three magazines.  “Load them with 9mm for me?” he asked nonchalantly.

Leah was understandably excited; she was being trusted with real ammunition.  She deftly loaded the magazines with fifteen rounds each, then picked up the gun.  He watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye, making sure she didn’t accidentally shoot him.  She checked the safety, seated the magazine then slid it home with a click – not slapping it in like they do in films and damaging the housing.  She then held the gun to the ground and chambered a bullet.  She checked the safety again and then neatly arranged the gun and magazines on the table.

“Very good” said Dan, trying to keep it casual.  “Now fetch a Glock check the actions and load one mag” he said, pretending to concentrate on loading his own rounds.

Leah was confused, but did as she was asked.  She finished at around the same time as Dan stood and went across the entrance hall to his room.  It was too early for Christmas, but still.  On their trip to the police station he had brought back some ballistic body armour.  As he had searched the lockers, he stumbled across the kit of what must have been the smallest policewoman ever.  She can’t have been much bigger than Leah, who was very tall for her age at nearly five and a half feet, but still very small in the torso.  He had removed the police badging out of principle, and got Lou to secretly sew a pistol holster to the front cover with a double mag pouch on the lower left side.  He had done this just after he had started training Leah, and hoped she would be happy with it.  He had even attached a sheath holding a short four-inch knife on the front of the left shoulder just like his own.

He donned his own armour vest, and dumped the small back one on the table in front of her.  She looked at it incredulously, mouth open, too scared of disappointment to believe what she saw.

Dan feigned a surprised look at her and said “Well?  Kit up kid, we haven’t got all day”

It was probably the greatest moment of her life, possibly even before everyone she knew had died.

Lexi was duty that day, and he told her they were going out and expected to be back by nightfall.  He gave her the nearby location they were going to with orders to come in force if not back when the sun was down and no radio contact had been made.

Lexi smiled at Dan’s kindness and helped Leah tighten the vest over her coat.  She picked up the Glock with some ceremony, checked the safety was on and pulled the topslide back slightly to see brass, just as he had taught her.  Her hands were too small to do it with one hand as he did when he was showing off.  She secured the weapon in the holster, which covered most of her chest, and tried her hardest not to beam with happiness.

Dan took his E&E bag, called Ash to heel, and they drove out.

Leah was at her most grown up as they rode.  Her eyes were alert, and her questions were minimal.  He wasn’t sure if she was actually looking or just being seen to be looking, he didn’t mind either way as she was trying.

Truth was, he could’ve done this short trip alone with just Ash, but it pays to prepare and she had to get out at some point or she would die of boredom.

They found the shop they wanted after a short drive, and although Dan had personally cleared the same building three times now, he went through the full drill just as he had trained her.  He mimed that she should draw her gun but not release the safety – they had discussed this in the car; she was only to take the safety off if he explicitly told her to shoot something. 

He sat Ash at the door and told him to stay.  He wasn’t overly bothered as he had done this so many times before.  With their rear covered, he and Leah searched the small building.  It was actually an old fuel station which had been turned into a Sainsbury’s Local shop, and Leah moved silently as she had been taught and covered his back as he moved.  He smiled to himself as she exaggerated the semi-crouch she had seen him use.  The kid was a natural.  Turning this into a real-life scenario where she might have to shoot a person was some way off, but if these skills were ingrained now then she would be better than all of them when she was grown up.

He nodded to her, and she announced “CLEAR” loudly to nobody in particular, full of pride.  On hearing her call, Ash trotted in betraying the he knew this was just a training exercise and wasn’t taking it seriously.

“OI!” said Dan loudly “OUT” Ash turned a lazy circle and sat in the doorway of the shop where Dan told him to stay.  He was the best early warning system this side of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.  Dan produced the list and Leah got a basket.  As the world had ended in early summer, there were no crackers or Christmas items lining the shelves.  If it had been October when it happened then there probably would have been, he thought sourly.

They quickly gathered what they had come for, and Dan ad-libbed with bags of nuts and all the Pringles tubes he could see.  They were still in date until late next year.

He led Leah back outside where they put the basket on the back seat, called their bored sentry to jump in – he was lay down with his chin on his front paws in protest of being berated – and drove home. 

Bizarrely, he had just made Leah the happiest girl ever, but that came at a price as they walked in through the main doors just as Kyle walked out.  He focused on the gun strapped to the chest of a child and went pale.  Dan thought he would cry or scream in rage, but he said nothing and walked out with glistening eyes.

Screw him, he thought.  He trusted the kid more than he would ever trust Kyle.  He should see if she can manage the shorter G36C soon, in the absence of finding an MP5.

Christmas Eve came, and Penny had done well organising games and entertainment.  Cara had produced a seemingly endless supply of jam tarts and mince pies, and the alcohol supplies took a hit.  Presents had been wrapped, and an enormous pile lay under the tree.  Cards had been given as though everything were as it used to be, only this time Dan put them on the windowsill in Ops.  One read “Dear Ops and Rangers, thank you for keeping us all safe.  Lots of love from the Catering department xxx”

He supposed that counted as normal now.

He felt bad that he hadn’t ‘bought’ gifts for anyone, and hadn’t even thought to get a small pack of cards to give out, not that he could easily remember everyone’s names.  He told himself that he was busy keeping them all alive whilst they shopped like it was a safe activity, but in his heart he knew it was because he was a miserable bugger.

He tried to excuse himself from the festivities on Christmas morning under the pretence of keeping watch, but nobody would let him.  Even Ash was joining in, with the two cockers jumping around with him playfully.

Dan received an extensive list of presents; an indulgently costly watch with compass and altimeter, a book of jokes (obviously someone else thought he was miserable too), some items of clothing, an action man (someone thought they were funny), a torch mount for his Sig from Steve and a number of bottles of scotch.  Leah had got him and Ash matching bandanas with the lower half of a skull on.

The best present by far, was something that Lexi had retrieved for Ash.  Clothing for dogs was a contentious issue for Dan, but there was no doubting the brilliance of this item.

In khaki green, with a heavy grab handle and tactical loops for attachments like Dan’s vest, Ash stood proudly with his own gear on.  It read ‘K-9’ on a Velcro patch on the side, and came with two pouches for him to carry a collapsible bowl and a bottle of water.  Dan fitted it to him, and laughed with everyone else as Ash spun in circles trying to figure out with utter futility what they had done to him.

Christmas dinner was wonderful – even more so if you considered the limited cooking abilities post apocalypse.  The food kept coming, as did the cakes and the drinks.

Everyone went to bed late as the fire burned low.  Dan was properly drunk, for the first time since it was just him and Neil.  He bid goodnight to the few left up, and took his dog outside for a smoke.  He could barely stand upright, let alone still.  He rolled into bed, having strewn his clothes across the floor of his room and collapsed naked into the mattress where he cursed the ceiling for spinning.  Just as he thought he was going to have to get up and puke, he lost consciousness.

He woke after what seemed like five minutes to light streaming in through the open curtains.  It was impossibly bright, but his still-drunk brain could not compute that it had snowed heavily in the night. 

He was cold, his head hurt, and as he rolled over he realised he was not alone.

AWKWARD

She was fast asleep and either he or she, or both of them, stank of alcohol. He couldn’t tell, but he cursed himself silently, and racked his memory for how this happened. 

She stirred, and he didn’t know whether to get dressed quietly and leave or pretend to be asleep.  As he was debating this, she groaned and rolled over, snaking a soft, lazy arm over his lower back.  He froze, but the hand moved down and squeezed his cheek intimately.

How the actual fuck did this happen? He thought. 

He lay there in shock, one arse cheek in her hand and his mouth open, just as she opened her eyes and focused on the world.  She squinted her face tightly at the bright light, then slowly released his flesh as it dawned on her where she was.

“Did you?  Did we? Oh shit!” she said as she scrabbled the duvet up to cover her bare chest.

“What the fuck?” asked Dan in a croak, equally mortified.

It was one of the most awkward moments of his life and combined to a murderous hangover, he wasn’t having a good day already.

He looked around on the floor and grabbed some clothes.  He threw them on in haste and bundled form the room, stopping in the cold hallway to put his coat, hat and boots on as his breath misted in front of his face to further cloud his vision.  Ash had not taken the initiative to come with him, so he abandoned the dog to sleep in blissful ignorance of his embarrassment.

He stole outside silently as the cold hit him.  His head swam.  He stopped at a patch of trees about twenty metres from the front door and expelled the remaining sour contents of his stomach into the snow.

He knelt in the bushes, stomach heaving.  The crunch of frozen snow underfoot made him turn, his fogged brain trying to make sense of anything and everything. 

The shovel hit him hard in the right side of his head and shoulder, the blow deflecting as he flinched away from it.  It sprawled him face down, choking him with a face full of dirty slush.

“Not better than me now, are you?” whined his attacker in a peevish voice, close to tears as he raised the shovel high above his head again.

Kyle had been waiting for him.  He was going to have one last attempt at convincing him to try him out and see if he could shoot.  He had wanted to attend Lexi’s self-defence class but was too bigoted to accept instruction in fighting from a woman, regardless that Lexi was arguably one of the most capable people there. 

Despite being told exactly why, he still thought he could cajole his way into being tested where he could prove himself and finally be a Somebody.

The final straw was when he saw her go into his room.  He realised, as he saw Dan stagger outside, that he was wasting his breath by planning to speak to him.  This man, who he saw as a bully, would never let him join his elite.  He would never make him one of them.  Just like everyone else in Kyle’s life; this man was better than him and he knew it. 

But not today, he had no guns and that bastard dog of his was nowhere to be seen.  He would show this man what he could do. 

He picked up the shovel left by the front door to clear snow, and walked behind him.  He thought himself stealthy, but in truth he would never have got anywhere near the man if he wasn’t so drunk; he simply wasn’t aware of anything.

As he retched onto the ground, Kyle swung the shovel like a cricketer aiming to send Dan’s head clear over the boundary.  The bastard turned at the last minute, making him miss his face.  Kyle recovered himself and started to beat the shovel down on him, over and over.  He cried aloud as he did it.  He cried for all the years he had been laughed at, rejected, bested, left behind and ignored whilst the Dan’s of the world got the recognition and the women.  The people good at sports, the ones who had muscles, fuck all of them.

Dan spun onto his back and used his legs.  He held off maybe ten or fifteen blows before a slipped footing rewarded him with a stinging blow to his right knee.  He involuntarily reached for it, and took a heavy hit to the top of his head.  Darkness flashed, and the pain was unbearable.

Kyle was so enraged; so consumed in his attack that he did not see Ana and Chris coming out of the house on their way to the farm.  They saw him, but it took a few seconds to realise that he was attacking a person and not venting frustrations into the snow.  Ana shouted and started to run towards him as Chris took the twelve bore shotgun from the slip on his back and fired twice in the air.

Kyle realised he had been caught.  He faced a choice; stay and this bastard would surely kill him, or run. 

He ran. 

Chris and Ana went to help Dan who was covered in blood.  He had taken a massive amount of damage and combined with his hangover, he lost consciousness.

Others ran from the house pulling on clothes as they rushed headlong into the cold.  Confusion reigned, and shouts for explanations rang out.  Chris handed Ana the gun and went to lift him up, only stopping when Kate screamed a command to leave him.  She ran over and saw the injuries to Dan’s head and the discarded shovel on the ground, barking orders for the stretcher and spine-board to be brought from medical immediately.  She had to get him off the ground quickly to avoid hypothermia, but carefully so she didn’t aggravate the likely neck injuries he had.

Penny strode from the house, her commanding voice demanding an explanation for the commotion.  She saw Dan, bloodied and battered in the snow, and stopped.

“Oh dear God!” she said “Who did this?”

Ana spoke first.  “It was Kyle” she still pronounced it ‘Keel’. “He hit him with…” she was lost for the translation although it was obvious, and pointed to the shovel saying “Cobok”

“We see him, and he run” she finished lamely.

Dan was brought inside strapped to the stretcher with blocks either side of his head.  Heaters were brought in and a fire lit in medical as his body temperature had already fallen dangerously low from the short time on the wet ground.  People buzzed around, asking questions until Kate roared at them all to get out.

“Anybody not medically trained is to leave right now!” she bawled as her temper frayed too far, standing square to stare down the room until they fled.  Only she and Lizzie remained.

Dan was unaware of all this as he lay unresponsive on his back, dripping diluted snowmelt and blood onto the floor.