The Brink (15 page)

But Death, it would appear, couldn’t touch Alan Harding and this seemed to enrage him all the more, taking it out on those nearest to him as if to mock him and make him feel that he was responsible for it, that if he’d only give in and die himself then Death would stop for a moment, ease off maybe and let a few of them live.

But Alan didn’t give in and he didn’t die that day, but a great many others did and from that small substation each one was taken and delicately laid to rest in a small garden. Here a fountain had once bubbled up from below and cascaded priceless water over a proud stone lion that now sat on its haunches, very much dry, looking up to heaven as if to follow those who lay forever sleeping at its feet.

9

“Why were you heading south?” asked Roger one evening after they’d buried the last of them. They were sat in the substation with a small fire burning in a bucket and, with the only window open and the door held ajar, they managed to sit in relative comfort around it without suffocating. Only Tim, Roger and his parents remained and the little group huddled around the flames as Alan added sticks occasionally from a pile at his feet. The cold had seemed to intensify over those last few days and there’d even been a hurried attempt at snow. How long it would last, Alan had no idea but Gary speculated that it might only last the year. If that were so then whatever growth had managed to return after the disaster wouldn’t survive another 12 months of reduced sunlight and frost, let alone the unknown effects of radiation.

“I don’t know,” he lied. “I thought I’d see if the tunnel was still open or something, try and get across to Europe. What about you guys? Why were you heading this way?”

Dave looked up from the mesmerising flames.

“The first time-” he started but Roger interrupted him.

“Second.”

“Sorry, the second time this happened and the darkness came we did pretty well in the midlands. There were so many more of us back then and we had the farm to live off.”

“The farm?” asked Alan.

“Yeah, been in the family since the Panic. My Granddad was given it by the Russians when people started moving back and he was the only Englishman to stay there in the aftermath of the bombing. He and his wife lived there, raising my Dad and his 2 brothers and they kept the place pretty self-sufficient. Then me and my sister, Claudia, were born, and so we were handed the reins when Dad got too ill.

“Then the disaster happened, but we were already prepared and managed to live off the food stocks we’d put away until the sun returned. We started growing stuff again the moment we could, everything we needed was there, ready to be used. We were quite lucky really.”

“So why did you leave?”

“We were driven out by scavengers. They got wind of the place eventually and hit us hard. There were about thirty of us but we didn’t really know how to fight. We did what we could, but in the end we drove out of there and left them to it. Place is probably ruined now.”

“What happened to the others?”

“We split up. Some went off on their own, others stayed to try and take back the farm. I had Roger to think of so the three of us got in my truck and left. A day later the storm came and after that…” He held up his hands in ignorance. “Who knows?”

“We picked Tim up not long after,” said Annie. “He was lost, wandering around a shop on some high-street somewhere, carrying that-”

She pointed to the red plastic tractor he had in his hands that he sometimes rolled up and down the concrete making little engine noises.

“There’s obviously something wrong,” she whispered. “We think he must be at least 16 but he seems to have the mental age of a 7 year old. It’s a crying shame.”

“The others you know about,” said Dave, wiping his eyes, either from the smoke that occasionally got caught on a stray draft from the door and blew into their faces or from the fresh and bitter memories buried at the fountain. Either would have had the same effect.

Like most people, Tim had taken an interest in Moll from the start and now that, sadly, he had her almost to himself, he often sat next to her, rolling that little toy up and down by her paws, muttering either to himself or to her, they couldn’t tell which, and appearing to be completely oblivious to the nightmare around him. At some point during the night, Alan looked up and saw him staring at the flames, smiling as the light played upon the glossy red paint of his tractor.

“You like that thing, don’t you Tim?” he said.

“Yes I do,” he replied. “It’s my favourite.” He rolled it across the concrete again and the wheels made a grinding noise as the dust got caught in the tiny bearings.

“Do you like Moll?” he asked.

“Hmm. She’s a nice dog. I like dogs. I like dogs more than cats. Cats are scary.”

“Why?”

“They scratch and stuff. I got scratched once by a cat. I told it to go away but it wouldn’t. It just looked at me with them big green eyes like it was going to eat me.”

He looked at Moll, then at the tractor, then at Alan. He frowned as if trying to think about something or work something out, his forehead creasing with concentration as he did so.

“You look sad,” he said suddenly. Alan took a moment to realise he was talking about him.

“What do you mean, Tim?” he asked.

“You look sad. Like you’re upset over something.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” He replied.

“You don’t sleep, you don’t eat and you never drink. You just work and work and work and then come and look at the fire with me. Do I make you sad?”

“God no, Tim,” he cried. “It would be hard for you to make anyone sad, mate. You’re a nice lad.”

“Really? You mean it?”

“Of course I do. You always help out-”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, looking after Moll for me and gathering sticks for the fire. That’s a big help, mate.”

“I didn’t think it was,” he said, looking down at this shoes. “I thought I was being a pain and that’s why you sent me out for sticks so you wouldn’t have to look at me.”

“No!” said Alan, sitting up. “Don’t ever think that, Tim. Ever. I sent you out for sticks because we need sticks, don’t we? And you always find the best ones.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah. If I send Roger or Dave,” he whispered. “Then they always come back with big logs or tiny twigs. These-” He held up one of Tim’s sticks. “These are the ones we need. Just the right size for the bucket. Not too big, not too small.”

“Not too big, not too small. Gotcha.”

“I always think that if you’re good at something, no matter what it is, you should do it. If you want to, of course.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Well then, you’re my stick man. You get me the best sticks so we’re warm at night. You also keep an eye on Moll for me so I can do what I’m good at.”

“Finding yummy chocolate bars,” he cried.

“Yeah,” laughed Alan. “That’s it.”

He rooted in his pocket and found the one he’d been keeping to have in the morning and passed it to Tim.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yeah. Take it. Just don’t forget to give some to Moll.”

“I won’t.”

He watched as Tim carefully unwrapped the bar without tearing the packaging and laid it out flat in front of him. Then, taking a small red folding penknife from his pocket, he cut the bar in half. He fed Moll her portion before eating his own in tiny little bites which may have even been considered nibbles. Each taste seemed to bring him fresh delight even though Alan had seen him eat at least 6 more in exactly the same fashion. At the end of each ritual, he neatly folded the empty wrapper into a square before putting it into his pocket with all the others.

“Don’t you like chocolate, Alan Harding? Is that why you don’t eat it?” he asked.

“I love chocolate,” he replied. “I’m just not that hungry.”

“Is it because you’re sad?”

“Kind of,” he admitted.

“Sad because of Martha?”

“Sad for all of them, Tim. All the people who fell asleep.”

“I liked Rachel and I liked Martha,” he said. He fell silent then and began rolling the tractor across the ground, back and forth, muttering as it went.

The fire crackled before him, hot enough to eat the sticks almost as quickly as he could add them and so hot that the thin material of the bucket was glowing near the middle, buckling outwards as the metal expanded.

On the other side, Dave and Annie laid together under the blankets whilst Roger slept near the wall, snoring lightly as the smoke drifted by above him, through the window and out into the rain which had started to fall half an hour earlier. It pattered upon the flat roof of the substation with little enthusiasm, sometimes daring to blow in through the gap in the doorway but never bold enough to do much more. Steadily it came and steadily the fire burned and the survivors snored. Even Tim laid down eventually, curling up into a similar shape to Moll beneath his own covers and drifted away to a world that must have seemed as peaceful as the one he lived in when he was awake.

But Alan sat there, unable to sleep so peacefully, and Moll sometimes looked across the room at him from where her head rested on her paws, perhaps thinking the same things and wondering just how long it would be before the dawn.

The fire had reduced itself to cold ashes when Alan woke from a strange dreamless doze, his neck sore and his backside cold from sitting upright on the concrete floor. Roger, Dave and Annie were gone and only Tim slept in the corner, snoring away and holding tightly to his red tractor. He was surprised to find they’d crept past him without waking him. Even Moll appeared undisturbed as she laid out on the floor, her tail swishing from side to side as she realised her master was awake.

Alan went outside, buttoning up his coat against the cold morning air that had left a sprinkling of frost on the ground and had dusted the rooftops like icing sugar on a cake. The sky was dark and overcast and it rolled along at a fast current, sweeping up any sunlight it could find and any rays that dared to try and sail on such turbulent seas.

He looked around for any signs of the family but saw none. The fire pit they’d made out of a huge metal container was cold; their little routine of lighting it for breakfast had been neglected that morning and the water used for boiling was still in the corner of the substation where they’d left it the night before.

He looked around, scanning the icy pavements and the patches of lawn which had now grown tall and wild and saw what he was looking for. In a stretch on the eastern side of the estate the grasses had been trampled recently because that morning’s frost had been trampled too. He followed the rough-hewn path along the fence, finding himself behind the bigger buildings until the gap between them and the fence narrowed almost to nothing.

There, laid arm in arm, were the family of survivors who’d come so far, but not far enough. Blue in the face, hair almost gone and teeth missing, their expressions twisted in a grim smile made worse by the discolouration of death and the effects of the cold upon them. They’d somehow found a way to poison themselves, he concluded, but judging from their faces it hadn’t been as peaceful as Gary or Reb’s and the bloody saliva that trickled from Annie’s mouth betrayed the horrible truth of a painful end.

He stood there for a moment, numb and confused, until these feelings gave way to a volcanic rage that erupted inside him, spewing forth great jets of hatred and malice at their cowardice, their selfishness and disregard for himself, for Tim or for the entire human race. He felt betrayed. He thought they had an understanding, that survival was all that mattered, but he’d been wrong. Deep down they’d been plotting to end themselves and leave him alone, to leave Tim to fend for himself or die trying. Right there and then he hated them, he despised them and all those who’d chosen the easy way out rather than have the courage to face all that life was throwing at them and would continue to hurl at them until they learned to fight back.

He walked away. He was so hurt and in so much pain that he knew he would never bury them, never honour them with a grave in the same earth as Martha and Rachel and all the others who so desperately wanted to live and yet still died, who’d stood by him and fought for life and still lost. That was a courage he could respect and one that was precious to him.

But in his arrogant wrath he promised the world that traitors would get no such grave from him.

He retraced his steps on trembling legs, walking back to the substation only to find Tim standing in the doorway with tears in his eyes and the tractor clutched tightly to his chest.

“I thought you’d left me,” he said, sobbing. “I woke up and no one was here.”

Alan hurried over but Moll was quicker, leaping forward with the understanding that her friend was hurt and needed her. She nuzzled his tear-stained face and he buried his hands in her fur, venting his upset and relief at the same time.

“I’m sorry, Tim. I had to-” He stopped. How could he tell him the truth? But how could he lie as well? “Tim, Dave and Annie and-”

“Yes?” he said.

“They’re gone. They’re asleep now. It’s just you and me and Moll.”

“I don’t understand,” he cried, looking up from the floor. “They were fine last night. Where are they?”

“I found them over there,” he said, pointing back towards the trail. “They... they killed themselves.”

“What?”

“They didn’t want to live any more. They’re dead.”

Tim said nothing but fresh tears came streaming down his face as he slumped against the wall, his head in his hands. Moll kept close to him, her face next to his, licking and smothering him with her affection.

“I don’t want to live either,” he sobbed. “I want to be asleep too, like the others. I don’t like this place anymore. Everybody goes away.”

“I haven’t left you, Tim. Moll hasn’t left you,” said Alan, his heart breaking.