Never Never (10 page)

S
arah saw
the castle from twenty miles away. Around the final bend, the land stretched like a treeless tableau, creating a stark moonscape of green, flanked on the west by a thick forest, beyond which they could hear the muted roar of the sea. The road straightened out, flat as a ruler for the final distance leading to the castle.

On the eastern side of the road were fields, now dormant and unused these past five years.

What had happened to the farmers and shepherds who lived here before the bomb? Why had no one planted the fields since then?

The castled perched on the horizon like a cutout from a child's activity book. Its stark outline of storybook crenellated towers—two of them visible even from this distance—anchored the broad expanse of limestone in between. It looked ominous, wicked, haunted.

It did not look like home.

“What do you think?” Mike asked as he rode up beside her wagon. “Crackin', isn't it?”

Sarah didn't respond.

“The ocean is behind it. And there will be a stream or water of some kind nearby. Irish castles were always built by a water source.”

“Cor, Mike, it's beautiful,” Tommy said from the driver's seat of the wagon. “Truly it is.”

“It's built up high like that so they can see anyone coming,” Mike said, his eyes bright with zeal. “We're still a good distance away but if there's anyone inside, they already know we're here.”

The fields gave way to the beginnings of a village on the eastern side of the road. It looked to Sarah like it had been there since the castle was built but that was hardly likely. Or if it had been there, it had long been rebuilt. Like so many of the other villages they'd seen on their trip, this one was a series of stone houses built in two rows facing the road that dissected the town. Unlike many of the other villages, this one was deserted.

At a call from behind, Mike turned away to help one of the other wagons. Tommy drove the wagon slowly through the village. Sarah shifted a sleeping Siobhan into the basket next to her on the seat while gripping the sides of the wagon as if she would be catapulted out at any minute. The closer they rode to the castle, the greater her dread grew.

It loomed. There was no other word for it. In fact, now that Sarah thought about it, the word
loomed
had to have been created just for this castle. Immense, fierce. Threatening.

The closer they got, the more massive it got and the more threatening it grew.

When they broke free of the eerie deserted village, the road bore down on the castle at its end. It was clear there could be nothing past the castle but ocean. The woods began again to their left. Sarah heard the chattering and excited exchanges from the other wagons.

Was she really the only one to see how evil the castle was? Were they actually
excited
about living in that thing? Goosebumps crept up her arms and she rubbed them away.

Tommy put the horses into a trot which jolted Siobhan awake. The baby cried sharply and Sarah jumped at the sound before pulling her out of the basket and into her lap to try to calm her. Siobhan's face turned dark red as she screamed her frustration. Sarah patted her back and bounced her on her knee. Her stomach was sour with nerves and anxiety. The look on Tommy's face showed he was so focused on the castle at the end of the road that he didn't even hear the baby's screams.

It took nearly an hour from when they'd first seen the castle before they reached it. The pastures and fields on the right side of the road diminished until there was no more grass. It occurred to Sarah that they hadn't seen a living thing—not people or animals—since they'd gotten their first glimpse of the castle, which hunched on the horizon like a malevolent beast, crouching and waiting for them.

The woods gave way to an elaborate garden area. Protected by ancient stone walls, the land was now totally overgrown but the bones of the beds and surrounding fruit trees were vaguely evident. To the right, opposite the garden and nearest to the entrance of the castle was a gigantic parking lot—nearly the size of a football field. There were two decrepit vehicles parked in it, forlornly rusting in the ocean air with their tires long since stolen.

On a small lawn a pair of wooden park benches sat facing the castle. Sarah imagined that once upon a time castle visitors would sit on the benches to eat ice cream while marveling at the castle's impressive structure. She tried to imagine how she might have felt if she'd seen this place during happier times.

The image wouldn't gel.

The place was evil and she knew that as surely as if she had documented evidence.

Dear God, we can't live here. Why can't Mike see that?
She turned to glance at him as he rode up beside her. His smiling face was flushed with excitement as he looked at the castle.

Tommy stopped and the rest of the wagons moved into position beside him.

The castle featured few windows in front—small vertical slits built for defensive archery—and a larger one in the gatehouse only. The two crenellated towers flanked a massive front wall that easily measured a city block long. If it were truly square as Mike said, all four sides would be much the same: slabs of stone, ten to twenty feet thick. The other two crenellated towers in back serving as reminders that years ago attack from the seaward side had always been an option.

The castle gatehouse with its massive wooden door jutted out from the wall and was nearly three stories high. Behind it were glimpses of the portcullis—suspended from the gatehouse ceiling in a wall of jagged metal. A wide moat circled the castle and separated them from the front door.

Sarah patted Siobhan's back and tried to see if there was water in the moat.

Mike came up to her wagon and dismounted.

“Just rain water in it as far as I can see,” he said. “If we can't find a water source to channel into it, we'll put sharpened stakes in the bottom.”

Sarah stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

“Tommy,” Mike said. “Unhitch the team, aye? I'll want you and Gavin to do a perimeter scout of the place to see if there's an easy way in.”

“Why don't you just go to the front door and knock?” Sarah asked.

Mike grinned at her and she looked away. It was one of the few words she'd spoken to him since the tiger attack.

“I think that's just what I'll do,” he said.

T
he castle was
everything Mike had remembered it would be. Majestic and impregnable. Perfect. And absolutely no way in.

Well, no
easy
way in.

Mike worked with the other men to erect the tents on the grassy knoll between the gardens and the road and across from the main parking lot. He'd seen shadows flicker in the front windows so that answered
that
question. Because of where the castle was situated, whoever was inside had seen them coming and had had at least two hours to decide what they were going to do about it.

After he, Gavin and Tommy had done a circuit of the castle, Mike knew for sure what he'd only half remembered before: there was no way in. The weather looked like it would hold at least for the night but it was mid-October. They'd have to get inside soon. One freezing rain out here without decent shelter would be a hardship he would go a long way to prevent for his group of mostly babies, women and children.

As the afternoon turned into evening, Mike smelled roasting meat coming from the castle. Gavin had already spotted several chimneys working inside so whoever was in there was warm, dry, and eating a hot meal.

His tent was set in the center of the camp beside the largest campfire. He'd gather the entire community after dinner to give thanks for their safe journey and to tell them his plans for entry into the castle. He hoped Sarah would do him the honor of standing by him for this but he didn't hold out much hope that she would.

The thought of being this close to finally reaching his goal had the joy sapped from it because of her resistance. He could only pray that time would show her he was right to bring them here.

But first, he was going to take his wife's suggestion of knocking on the front door as a literal one.

What could it hurt?

S
haun stood
by the gatehouse window and looked down at the little tented community on his front lawn. They were a sizable group—larger than most he'd seen. He'd watched them approach for nearly two hours. Unlike most visitors to Henredon Castle, they simply set up their tents like they were moving in. As of yet, no one had approached.

“Are they still there?” Ava asked, coming up behind him to peer out the window.

“Aye. They've put tents up.”

“Why didn't they ask to come inside?” Ava was a tall woman but still several inches shorter than Shaun. She had naturally curly hair that framed her face like a picture. Shaun knew several of the other women envied Ava's curls.
Even during the end of the world,
he thought,
women will always be women
.

“That is a good question,” he said.

“They're up to something.” The voice, coming from behind Ava, was shrill. Shaun didn't need to turn around to know it was his sister Saoirse. Heavyset with a ruddy complexion and hair the color of dark rust, Saoirse stood watching the activity below with flaring nostrils and her fists clenched.

“I guess we'll find out,” Shaun said.

“Are those children down there?” Ava said with excitement. “They have children, Shaun. Maybe they have a nurse or a doctor?”

Shaun frowned. “I thought you said Keeva was better today.”

“She's poorly again this evening. I wish we had something to give her. Two ibuprofen would bring her fever right down.”

Shaun looked out the window.
Would this lot likely have medicine?
After nearly five years of scrambling and scavenging, was there anyone left with intact stores? He'd long thought that someone might do very well in the black market for items like aspirin and ibuprofen. If there
was
a black market. The problem was people nowadays didn't negotiate for what they wanted. They just hit you on the head and took it.

“You can't be serious,” Saoirse said with a sneer.

“Spoken like someone without a child to worry about,” Ava retorted.

“There's too many of them,” Saoirse said. “What if they try to take the castle? And throw us out?”

“Let's don't overdramatize,” Shaun said. “They hardly look like a group who could ‘take the castle.' From here they look like mostly women.”

“Please, Shaun,” Ava said, her eyes watching the tent community below. “Just let one or two in.”

He hesitated. He hadn't kept everyone in the castle safe for the last five years by taking a lot of risks. It had been difficult and, as the only man, fairly lonely, too.

But he couldn't chance it.

“It's too dangerous,” he said. “Saoirse's right about that. What if we let them in and they won't leave?”

“But they might have aspirin!”

Shaun pinched his lips together and blew out a snort of frustration but before he could respond to her, Saoirse pushed in front of Ava and peered out the window.

“A bloke is coming to the front door!”

Shaun and Ava crowded around the window. A large man was striding to the front of the castle just below where they stood at the window. With the drawbridge up, all he could do was stand and shout up to them.

“You two stand back,” Shaun said, pushing Saoirse behind him. “Let's hear what he wants.”

“Ask him if they have aspirin!” Ava hissed.

“Oy, the castle!” the big man shouted up. “A word, if you please.”

“Yes, we see you,” Shaun yelled back. He knew that didn't sound friendly but it couldn't be helped.

“We have travelled a long way and the night is cold. Will you let us in?”

He doesn't beat around the bush.