After it Happened Boxset: 1-6 Omnibus Edition, page 54
“…know where I am…please…me…anyone there?”
Emma, and not a happy Emma.
Rich was quick to respond. “Emma? Is that you? Can you hear me?” he fired back.
“…Hello?”
“Find out where she is,” Leah said, concentrating on the pitch-black road illuminated by the bright headlights.
Rich spent the next five minutes trying to exchange conversation between them, until Leah crested a hill on the motorway and the signal suddenly became clear.
She stopped fast, flicking the dial between the front seats to select R and launching backwards to the top of the hill.
The signal came through loud and clear.
“Emma? Emma?” she said after snatching the mic from Rich.
“Hello?” Emma answered.
“It’s Leah. Tell me exactly where you are,” she barked with more authority than any thirteen-year-old had the right to own.
She did, to some extent.
Leah flicked on the internal LED light and bathed the cab with unnaturally harsh bright light. She threw open the map and exchanged a few more lines with Emma, until she was sure where Emma was. As luck would have it, they were on the same motorway but about twenty miles apart.
“Roll slowly. We’re coming to get you. Flash your lights when you see us,” Leah said, flicking off the interior light and dropping the big car into drive before planting the accelerator into the carpet.
Best-laid plans and all; they hit a complete roadblock after two miles. She had no idea, but it was the same roadblock Emma’s attackers had planned to trap her against when she bumbled into their lives. Leah had to get out and check the blockage before deciding that one car could easily be dragged out to make a gap wide enough for the Land Rovers.
She quickly hooked up the front winch and dragged a wreck of an old Subaru clear as Rich scanned the area with his rifle. The cable was rapidly withdrawn and the journey resumed. They found Emma after another fifteen minutes.
She saw them approaching fast and flashed her headlights, causing a sudden flash in the eyes of her rescuers.
Leah pressed the handbrake button after flicking the selector into park and burst from the driver’s door. As she feared, Emma was alone. She was a complete state, with a grimy face and messy hair.
“Steve? Where’s Steve?” she barked, scanning around with the dog at her left heel and her carbine raised out of paranoid habit.
Emma could barely speak.
Leah took charge, asking Rich to drive the Defender back as she led Emma to the passenger’s seat of the Discovery. As confident as she seemed to the others, all she wanted to do was get this mess back to Dan to decide what to do.
The two-car convoy moved fast, eager to be off the road and back in the relative safety of home.
Emma didn’t say a word; she just hugged her knees and rocked slightly.
“Where’s Steve?” Leah asked again, forcing herself to sound calmer.
“It’s not my fault,” Emma said weakly.
Fearing the worst, Leah just drove on with the need to get home.
~
Dan’s burns were worse than he realised and had started to blister badly. Kate had run them repeatedly under cold water and wrapped his swollen hands in wet bandages. He was starting to feel the pain when Lexi poured three very healthy measures of single malt for them as she, Dan and Neil sat at the table in Ops. Dan reached for the CB mic but dropped it due to the ungainliness of his alien hands.
Neil stood and picked it up. “You there, young’un?” he broadcast.
“Yeah. On the way back. One on board,” she said.
Dan heard the stress in her voice even if the others didn’t.
“One?” Neil said.
“Yes, yes. Ten minutes,” she replied.
True to her word, nine minutes later she pulled up and nosey-parked his car, closely followed by Rich climbing out of Steve’s Defender. No Steve.
Emma did not look good; she was physically exhausted and was half carried by Leah inside. Emma raised her eyes and looked directly at Dan.
“Please,” he said through anger made far worse by the pain, “tell me where my goddamned Ranger is.”
ALIVE
Before she lost consciousness, Emma managed to tell them he wasn’t dead.
That was good, Dan supposed. The events leading up to him being alive and not there still needed explaining in detail, but Kate was adamant that the girl needed at least some rest before they interrogated her.
She was awake by lunchtime, before Dan woke, resulting in Marie carefully rousing him. The exhaustion and stress of the last thirty-six hours coupled with the painful blisters on his hands and the subsequent painkillers had knocked him out cold.
She helped him into some uncharacteristically comfortable clothes and led him downstairs. He allowed her to take control of him – welcomed it, in fact. There had barely been a day during the last year when he hadn’t been worrying about himself and everyone else, about their future and the threats to their safety. The few times he hadn’t been thinking like that were when he had been ill or injured. Fearing what he would hear, he sat in Ops and accepted a coffee as he watched Emma fidgeting in her seat. She had showered and her now clean hair hung damply as she bent her head to her drink.
“Are you OK?” Dan asked her as he shifted in his seat for comfort, remembering his lack of manners and concern when he saw her last.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied timidly. She cleared her throat and set her drink down on the table carefully, preparing herself to recite the story of the last few weeks.
Nobody interrupted her until she reached the part about Richards. Dan sat forward and fired off a series of questions designed to establish the basis of a threat assessment. It was automatic.
“Debrief later,” Leah instructed. “Go on,” she gently urged the scientist ten years plus her senior, putting Dan in his place.
She told them of the escorted visit to the lab, of the inconclusive blood tests, and then of the discovery of the computer login details.
Dan fought to control his impatience and stop it boiling over into temper; he didn’t care one bit about the science right now and wanted to know what had happened to his friend. He couldn’t wait any longer. “Later. Steve?” he said, trying not to snap.
“We got back to the army camp. Richards wasn’t going to let us go, so Steve got me out and stayed. He said he was the real prize, that they wouldn’t chase me if he stayed,” she blurted out, worried that she would be blamed for his absence.
“That sounds like Steve,” Dan said, “but what was his plan to get out?”
Steve had to have an exit strategy, Dan thought. He was too clever and analytical to just sacrifice himself.
“He’s going to fly back,” she said simply, silencing them all.
FIVE HUNDRED FEET
The large bladder tanks replaced two of the folding seats on each side of the helicopter, allowing the side doors to still be used. The hydraulics controlling the ramp decided to stop working, resulting in a further day’s delay while the problem was diagnosed and fixed. Having the rear ramp up wasn’t exactly necessary to fly, but the excuse kept them grounded for long enough to lose the daylight.
Finally, Steve could stall no further. Pre-flight checks were normal, all dials were in the green, and he agreed to try and take her up the next morning into a hover before bringing the aircraft back to earth.
The first test flight made his nerves taut with fear. He expected cockpit alarms to sound at any second and for the engines to stall, plummeting him down to his death.
He didn’t die, nor did the old Merlin falter.
Steve’s elation almost made him forget that he was there under duress, albeit with faked compliance. He insisted on taking her up again, this time unable to stop volunteers from joining him. A nervous mechanic named Phil wanted to come up, and Mitch joined them. The soldier helped strap Phil in and put a headset on him, giving a thumbs up to save shouting over the noise of the whining engines.
Mitch wore a harness like the straps for a parachute, shoulders and legs held tight, and a heavy strap attached to a clip to secure him as the stand-in loadmaster. He attached it inside the doorway and spoke into the boom mic on his headset. “Let’s take her up,” he said.
Steve manipulated the controls to launch the helicopter up and backwards, quickly getting clear of the ground. He banked hard, making Mitch brace himself in the open side door.
“How are we looking, Mitch?” Steve asked, wishing he was alone and could flee south.
“All good,” came the crackling reply. “Phil’s not enjoying it, though!” he said with amusement, looking at the terrified mechanic.
“I’ll do a quick sweep and take her back down,” Steve said.
“Are we not heading south now?” Mitch asked.
Steve’s smile evaporated. “South?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
“I assumed that’s where we were headed, to find your people? Why else do you think I’m here with Phil, who’s shit-scared of flying?” Mitch said with a laugh.
Steve couldn’t believe it. His secret plans of escape were obvious to Mitch, who had even established a fellow deserter to join them.
Richards's happy ship was taking on water, it seemed.
He laughed aloud to himself at his own stupidity; of course people suspected he would run. Why else were so many “guides” sent to “protect” them?
Well, that plan just backfired. He was in the air, he was free, and he was heading home.
The remaining guards and engineers on the ground watched in ignorant admiration as the old bird banked and flew a ponderous loop over their small base. They remained fixed in their gaze at the empty sky as the aircraft levelled out and dipped its nose to raise the tail end and surge over their heads. It took them over a minute to start to really worry. When the noise of the three turboshaft engines had faded into eerie silence, the first serious doubts gnawed at them.
One by one, they realised that the helicopter which had taken them a few days to nurse back into flight-worthiness was gone, and that they had been made complete fools of.
The last of the soldiers to stay watching the sky sighed to himself, not relishing the punishment he would likely receive when he got back to the captain.
He let his gaze drop from the sky and sighed again to himself.
“Oh shit,” he said to nobody in particular.
~
“You’re deserters!” Steve joked with Mitch and Phil.
“Technically not,” reasoned Mitch as he braved the buffeting side winds to close the sliding door in the fuselage. “I’m defecting if you think about it. So is Phil, aren’t you, mate?”
Steve couldn’t see behind him, but his headset relayed Phil’s pained croak of response. He didn’t think Phil gave much of a shit right now; he would probably start throwing up soon.
Mitch stood behind Steve’s shoulder in the doorway to the cockpit and leaned against the wall as he still held the metal rail above his head.
“Like a Russian spy or something,” he explained.
Steve smiled, glad for the company and the welcome turn of events.
He flew low and hard, hugging the contours of the ground and going no higher than five hundred feet from the undulating earth below. He avoided the larger hill ranges, skirting to the east or west to save having to gain altitude. His hands and feet were as one with the controls, his very soul hardwired into the machine. Not once did the smile leave his face as he accelerated close to a hundred and eighty miles an hour.
They discussed the smoking ruins of a burned-out population centre in the distance, with Mitch remarking that it was likely improved and far safer than it had been a couple of years ago. Steve picked up the snaking tarmac as it widened to four lanes and followed it south, knowing that within half an hour it would merge with another tarmac artery of their now deceased country. He could follow that new road right to the doorstep of the prison and be landing minutes later. He daydreamed about the looks on their faces and hoped that Emma had got back safely by now.
He brought his thoughts back to the present, thinking in wonder about how they were still in the air as he had switched off completely for a number of seconds; he had done that in a car so many times and didn’t crash, but somehow doing it in ten tonnes of screaming jet engines and spinning metal made any lapse in concentration even more dangerous.
He pushed on, ignoring the ache creeping into his legs and arms and shoulders. He was out of practice physically, but that didn’t detract from his deeply ingrained ability or skill in piloting the bird over the overgrown wasteland below.
YOU CAN’T PARK THAT THING THERE
Dan began to give a flurry of orders for maps to be found and the site identified. He fired question after question at Emma, ignoring her vulnerability in his own selfishness and upsetting her.
Of course she didn’t know what weapons were what; she couldn’t tell a submachine gun from a duck gun, so his interrogation caused her stress. She broke, crying and apologising for coming back alone.
Dan finally realised he was being a complete dick. He stood, placing one bandaged hand awkwardly on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m glad you’re back safe, and if I were Steve, I would have done anything to get you out too.”
She softened at that.
In truth, he was very worried about Steve, and even more worried about the thought of taking on a group of soldiers to get him back with their depleted force. He went outside to smoke, followed by Marie, who lit the cigarette for him. He was saved the remonstration from Marie about how harshly he had treated Emma when Neil appeared with Chris and Ewan.
“It’s time,” Neil said, face cast in a stony expression of sorrow. They had dug the hole and planted a large stone ready for Joe’s burial.
“OK,” said Dan quietly, pausing to draw on the cigarette again. “Get everyone out.”
He and Marie left the trio and walked slowly towards the spot in the woods where Penny’s well-tended grave stood among the flowers. The hole was deep and neat, the excavated earth piled tidily by the side partially in the shadow of the large piece of natural sandstone standing proudly as a headstone. Joe was already inside, wrapped tightly in a sheet.
They waited in silence as the others slowly and silently gathered around them. Dan worried that he wouldn’t be able to give any kind of speech; he felt too empty, too forlorn and too angry. He felt right now that their life was pointless and they would have been better off being one of the lucky ones who weren’t immune. He’d certainly experienced more pain since it had happened than he would have if the virus had killed him.
Soon, almost their whole contingent was present. Dan recognised nearly all of them but could probably only name half if pushed.
Neil cleared his throat and looked at him expectantly, prompting the unofficial ceremony to begin.
Dan just couldn’t bring himself to force out the words he didn’t believe right now. He knew it was a mixture of the grief, the pain, the exhaustion and probably the strong tablets Kate had given him.
Marie sensed this somehow and stepped forward to stand on the raised slope behind the graves. “Joe died to protect us,” she sang out in her clear voice, instilling instant silence and feeling the burning attention of so many eyes. “He did his job. He did it well.” She paused to look down at the wrapped body below her. “Those who killed him knew with their final breath what it meant to cross us. To kill us. To attack us.” Her eyes scanned the crowd, reading them as she did and encouraging the collective heartbeat to quicken to her words. “But this isn’t what makes us special, what makes us more.” She invested the last word with heavy emphasis, showing the crowd a clenched fist to underline her point. “We are a society. We are a family. Today, we mourn the loss of one of our soldiers, our brother. Our friend. But we are here and we are free to mourn because of his sacrifice.”
All eyes were fixed on her.
She seized the opportunity. “As you may know, we are missing another soldier. Another brother. Another friend. As we pray for the soul of Joe to find rest, so too do we hope for the safe return of Steve.”
She stooped to collect a small handful of earth from the mound and held her arm out straight, slowly trickling the dark soil between her fingers to fall on Joe’s body. She gently took Dan’s arm and led him away, saving him the need to add any words or try and use his swollen hands to throw dirt on his friend. The others followed suit, mimicking her actions one by one as they formed a solemn queue to pay their respects and disperse to their own thoughts.
Dan kept his gaze on the ground and his expression plain as she led him back to the house, intending to insist he rested. They stood near the house and smoked in silence again.
Ash’s ears pricked up. He turned his head to face the woods, swinging it back and forth between the house and the farm, searching. They watched the dog in companionable silence, neither switching on to what the animal’s behaviour meant. It was only the low rumbling growl of the patented early warning system that sparked Dan’s return to the present.
He instinctively reached for a weapon, realising he wasn’t – for the first time in as long as he could remember – carrying one.
He threw down his half-smoked cigarette and bawled for Leah and Rich and Lexi. In his grief, he almost called for Joe too, then remembered and felt another surge of anger.
Why won’t people just leave us alone? he thought. His feelings of uselessness made him colour up in frustration that his burned hands couldn’t work a weapon, that he would have to leave the defence of their home to others.
People were running past them in panic just as the noise began to break through the trees: the high-pitched whine of the engines and the unmistakable whop, whop, whop of rotor blades. Dan could barely believe what he was hearing. They had no time to react, to form a defence.
