Savage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (4 page)

“I like the sound of that,” said Alistair.

Anna huffed.  “We all know the Army fell to
pieces.  There are no troops left.  As for weapons, well, I’d imagine
they were looted a long time ago.  But, as I said, it’s your call,
Garfield.  You’re our man in the field.  I’m just the mother hen at
home.” 
Which is another way of saying I’m middle-aged and useless.

Garfield looked over at the injured man on the table
and sighed.  “Guess I’m just making sure you’re okay for me to set off for
a while.  Salisbury Plains is a good distance and who knows what the
journey will be like.  It would take a three-hour drive even if the roads
were clear.  The way things are it’s more likely to take us three days
there and the same amount back.”

Anna nodded.  She knew what Garfield wanted, even
if he was prodding limply around the vagina concerning it.  “You want me
to look after Poppy.  Just come out and say it.”

Garfield stared at his boots.  The man rarely
made eye contact, but there was a flicker of expression across his face that
showed his heart still beat with emotion.  “I’m all she’s got,” he
muttered.  “If I don’t make it back, or even if I’m just gone a while,
she’ll be hurting.”

“And when she’s hurting,” said Alistair, “that little
pup gets wild.”

Garfield shot Alistair a chastising look, but ended up
nodding and agreeing with the statement.  “Yes, she does.  She
doesn’t like being confined.  You know I found her trapped in a dirty
house with her two dead parents locked in the bedroom.  Imagine what it
was like for her, having to remain quiet for weeks so that they wouldn’t crash
through the door and get her.  When I found her, she was starved and catatonic. 
It’s taken me a year to bring her back from that dark place, but I can’t do it
on my own anymore.  I need help – especially while I’m away.” 
The man looked close to tears.

Jesus Christ.  And here was me thinking soap
operas were dead. 
“I know what the girl has been
through,” said Anna.  She rubbed at her forehead and cringed when she
realised her hands were caked in her patient’s blood.  She didn’t like
what Garfield was asking of her.  She wasn’t good with kids – having
never had any of her own beyond an ill-fated miscarriage – and the last
time she’d cared about another she’d lost him.  It had been a point of
hers ever since to keep her emotional distance.  Looking after an unruly
child was not part of her five-year plan.  In fact the only words written
on her five-year plan were: LOOK AFTER YOURSELF.
                            

“Please, Anna.  You’re the only person I trust.”

Alistair pulled a face.  “Charming.”

The statement of trust surprised Anna.  To her
understanding, nobody really trusted anybody at the pier.  They all worked
together for mutual benefit and played at friendship, but really they were only
together by circumstance.  “Well,” she eventually said, “if you’re saying
that you need to venture out for the good of the group, then I guess I have no
choice.  As for finding weapons, I’m not particularly interested.  I
would rather you find something more useful than a bloody tank. 
Like Doritos.
  Why do you never bring back Doritos?”

Garfield smiled, visibly relieved by her agreeing to
look after his girl.  “I’ll see what else I can find along the way,” he
said.  “Doritos will be first on my list.”

“Just get going sooner rather than later,” she
said.  “Sooner you’re back the sooner life can go back to normal.” 
What
is
normal
anymore?  I don’t even know.

“I’ll go first thing in the morning,” Garfield said.
 “I just need to eat and get some sleep first.  I’ll take some of the
fuel we have stored up and try to get a couple of vehicles working. 
There’s a Range Rover parked at the old church on the edge of the village that
I think I can get started.  I’ll be taking the full team to make the most
of whatever we find.  Cat and the other foragers should be back this
evening, so I’ll brief them all then.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Alistair. 
“You’ll leave us short-handed.”

“For what?  There’s not much to be done around
here other than fish.”

“Garfield is right,” said Anna.  “If he’s going
further afield, it makes sense to maximise how much he can bring back. 
It’s not like he can make such a trip every day.  Besides, he’s likely to
be in more danger than we are.  He might need the backup.”

Alistair shrugged irritably.  “Fine.  Just
don’t get everyone killed out there, Garfield.”  He turned and walked
away.  “I’m going to get something to eat.”

“There’s a surprise,” said Garfield.

Anna looked at him.  “Alistair has a point, you
know?  You best come back in one piece, along with everybody else.”

“I’ll do my best, that’s all I ever do.  I never
asked for this.”

“None of us did.  You just take care out there.”

“I shall.  Thanks, Anna.”  With that,
Garfield left the diner, his
overly-dramatic
coat
flapping as he walked. 
I swear he thinks he’s Batman in that thing.
 

Anna turned back to her patient, and to Rene. 
Her friend was wide-eyed and wanting her attention.  “What is it?” she
asked him.

Rene nodded towards the patient.

Anna approached the table and heard a sound: a soft
mumbling.  She knelt down and placed her head close to the injured man’s
lips, listened.

“Roman,” he was mumbling deliriously.  “Roman,
Roman, Roman.”

“R
oman has returned,” Frank informed
his adopted son.

Samuel Raymeady laced his slender fingers together
across his long metal desk.  Everything aboard the
HMS Kirkland
was
made of metal, and the only colour was grey.  Sometimes Frank longed for a
bit of wood or plastic.  The den he used to keep at his home in Worcester
was full of warm oak and supple leather.  He missed it.

“Did he do what I asked of him?”

Frank sighed, straightened up at the shoulders, and
gave an answer his adopted son never liked to hear.  “No.”

Samuel lent forward, sharp elbows propped on the
aluminium surface of his desk.  His dark eyes seemed to swirl for a moment
before he spoke.  “No?”

“He was unable to get a confirmed kill.  He
wounded the target, but…”

“Wounded the target?  How?”

“Roman shot him with the pistol you gave him.” 
The
Kirkland’s
armoury was meagrely equipped with a dozen handguns and a
small cache of ammunition.  Whilst Samuel’s company, Black Remedy, had
possessed a contract to build and maintain several new British Naval frigates,
along with it’s onboard weapons systems, it did not have permission to provide
small arms.  The modest collection of handguns had been provided by Black
Remedy’s security arm, so that the ship could at least be minimally protected
whilst it was being built.  Samuel kept a tight lock on all of the
handguns, but two of them currently hung on the wall behind his desk, and Frank
knew his son also kept one in a drawer in his desk.  “The target took a
9mm round in the guts,” Frank explained.  “He was badly wounded.”

“Then he may well be dead.”

“More than likely.”

“So why couldn’t Roman verify it for certain? 
The man he was chasing is a cripple, after all.”

Frank sighed.  “There were a lot of dead in the
area.  Roman claims to have become separated from the target and was only
able to fire off a single shot before retreating.  The target got away,
but was badly injured.”

Samuel smashed his fist down on the table, shaking the
paper and pens on its surface.  “I ordered that cripple dead.  He
tried to murder us all, father, or need I remind you?”

Frank stood in silence for a moment.  His adopted
son’s rage was a closely guarded secret that only a few people ever became
aware of – usually to their detriment.  It was best to give Samuel a
second or two to calm down before answering him.  “You do not need to
remind me, Samuel.  It was me who told you about the engine room bomb in
the first place.”

“A bomb which would have taken down this entire ship,
along with hundreds of innocent lives that I have personally saved.  I
won’t have my good work undermined, father.  Do you understand me? 
Those who work against me must be dealt with else I appear weak.  The
respect the members of this fleet have for my authority is the only thing
keeping order.  It isn’t enough that I have the biggest ship.  I must
also have the biggest shadow.” 

“I am sure Roman did his best, Samuel.  He has
never failed you before.”

“Nor have I ever given him a task worthwhile
before.  Fetch Roman.  I would have words.”

Frank nodded.  He left the captain’s chambers and
sent a runner to go and collect Roman.  The man could usually be found out
on deck, brooding alone, but he had a tendency to make himself elusive when it
suited him.  It was close to forty minutes later when Roman finally
appeared and the irritation of having been summoned was clearly etched on his
muddy face. 
Does the man ever crack a smile?

Roman told no one his real name and had instead earned
the notorious moniker for the fact that he wielded an antique short sword in
his right hand and a makeshift metal spear from the fleshy stump where his left
should be.  The man had shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair and kept no
friends.  He had his uses, though, which Samuel never failed to utilise
when needed.  Roman did not fear the dead as most men did
.  
He
was willing to go ashore for the most frivolous of tasks and battled the dead
head-on.  Frank had seen the same kind of suicidal behaviour in the Gulf
War.  They called it a
deathwish
, and it was the domain of men with
nothing to lose.  Facing mortal danger was the only thing that made some
people feel alive.  This time, though, Roman had been given a gravely
important task and failed.

Frank nodded to the man.  “Roman.”

“Frank.”

“The captain would like to see you.”

“Does he, now?”  Roman shoved past Frank and went
through into the captain’s chambers.  Frank followed him closely, and
anxiously. 
This may get heated.

Samuel’s chambers were custom built.  The
Kirkland
was based on the British Navy’s Type 23 Duke Class frigates, but was a
third longer and six times as modern.  It was the first of several that
were to be built to replace the Type 23, but the end of the world had ensured
that the
Kirkland
was one of a kind. 

The captain’s chambers consisted of a utilitarian,
red-carpeted office intended to impose itself upon underlings, and a plush
suite and bathroom in an adjoining room designed to give the ship’s CO maximum
comfort.  Samuel very rarely made use of the room’s king-size bed,
though.  Some of the ship’s officers also had private berths, but most of
the ship’s personnel slept in a series of bunkrooms. 

Samuel remained seated as Roman strode into the room
like a tribal warrior
;
all covered in mud and blood
and armed with sharp steel.  Frank narrowed his eyes. 
Long as he
keeps that sword at his belt and his spear pointed at the floor, there won’t be
a problem.
 

Roman concerned Frank greatly.  There was
something dangerous about the man, an air of wild fury that bubbled beneath his
surface constantly –
not unlike Samuel in that respect. 
Frank
found the younger man difficult to read.  Roman never gave anything away.

Samuel nodded.  “Hello, Roman.”

“Hello, Samuel.”

Most of the men aboard the
Kirkland
referred to
Samuel as
sir
or
captain
;
but not
Roman.  He never called any man by their rank.  It was an unsafe
attitude to maintain aboard another man’s ship.  Samuel bristled at the
slight, but acted as if he hadn’t noticed.  “Roman, I have been informed
you failed your task.  Disappointing.”

“If you mean I didn’t kill a man you wanted dead, I
can’t say for sure.  He might be dead; he might not be.”

“And if he lives, then you have failed me.”

Roman said nothing.  He stood unflinchingly and
made no movement other than blinking.  The spear attached to his arm was
completely still.  His sword remained at his belt.  Samuel stared
right back, equally as implacable.

Frank studied Samuel’s face and remembered the
unassuming little boy he’d once been so long ago; a world apart from the powerful
magnate he became as a young man and the fearless leader he was today. 
Thousands of men owed their lives to Samuel and his actions during the early
days of the outbreak.  His megalithic corporation, Black Remedy, had been
building frigates for the Royal Navy at the time of the infection.  Samuel
had commandeered the vessel nearest completion and used it take people away
from the land.  The
HMS
Kirkland
had been used to rescue a
great many lives. 
Including Roman’s.  Samuel could have left him
to die at sea in that old dinghy we found him floating in.  What was the
name of the man who was with him...was it Henry?  No, it was something
else.

Samuel blinked and swatted away a lock of jet-black
hair, which had fallen across his brow.  “Do you enjoy being here, Roman?”

Roman said nothing.

“Let me rephrase that.  Do you prefer being here
to
not
being here?”

Roman cleared his throat.  “Life is easier aboard
a ship than on land among the dead.”

“I’ll take that answer to mean you prefer being
here.  I do wish you wouldn’t talk in riddles.  Now, as you’ve said,
being aboard my ship is much better than being on land – nobody would
dispute that – but, as such, being on my ship comes at a premium. 
Your premium is that I expect you to get things done.  When you fail, your
place aboard my ship falls into question.”

“So eject me.”

Samuel laughed at that.  “Does anything ruffle
your feathers, Roman?  Did losing that hand bother you?  Or did you
strap a spear in its place before the bleeding even stopped?”

“The spear came later, after the dead made having one
so useful.”

Samuel laughed again.  From the corner of the
room, Frank relaxed a little.  Samuel seemed to admire Roman’s dry wit and
unflinching manner.  Perhaps it was because Roman was the only man aboard
the
Kirkland
who didn’t treat Samuel like the Messiah.  Frank
imagined that people could become pretty tiresome when their only interest was
pleasing you.  Samuel had suffered sycophancy his entire life – from
being the coddled child in his needful mother’s arms to the CEO of the world’s
most powerful commercial entity.  For Samuel Raymeady’s entire life,
people had bent over backwards to please him. 
But
not Roman.
 
I remember a time when I was so bold.  When
did I get so old?

“Maybe your use is not at an end just yet,” Samuel
said.  “I’m just making a friendly statement of the facts, that is all.
 All men aboard my ship must have value.  You only have one hand, so
you cannot do much aboard the
Kirkland
, but one thing you do very well
is going ashore to face the dead.  That is what your use is to me, as
other men have uses in other areas.  That is the way of things. 
Those without value must leave to be a burden elsewhere.  I would prefer
that you remain here, Roman.  I would prefer that you remain useful.”

Roman blinked.  “If I could have killed the
cripple, I would have, but I am one man, not an army.  I could not fight
all the dead even if I wanted to.”

“Perhaps one day you
will
lead an army,” said
Samuel.  “That would be my hope.”

“An army needs an enemy.  I see none.”

“What do you call the dead?”

“Dead.”

Samuel laughed again.  He rubbed at his eyes and
stood up.  “Perhaps we should agree to disagree about that.  I thank
you for listening to my concerns.  Might I ask where you last saw the
cripple?  Where were you when you shot the man?”

“I was near the coast.  I saw signs for Dartmouth
and
Paignton
.  He was holed up inside a petrol
station.  I tracked him from the smoke coming from a fire he
started.  When he saw me coming, he smashed out the windows and attracted
the dead with the noise.  It was the only thing that saved him.”

Frank muttered.  “It appears the man feared you
more than he feared the dead, Roman.”

“Don’t blame him.  I was there to kill him.”

“But you failed,” said Frank.  “Perhaps next time
he will fear you less.”

“Not if he’s smart.”

Samuel clasped his long hands in front of him. 
“Frank, tell the Bridge to make for the coast.  We’ll look for any signs
of the cripple and send a landing party to search the area where he was last
seen.  I know it may seem unnecessary, but I hate uncertainty.  I
would rather know one way or the other if the man lives.”

“And if he is still alive?” asked Frank.

Samuel grinned.  “Then Roman will be given a
chance to redeem himself.”

Roman said nothing.  Frank sighed.