The Bitter End (13 page)

Ben listened, fascinated despite the dreadful nature of the situation. Aaron's past was, until that moment, a mystery to him. He had never wanted to talk about it before. Ben had assumed it was for the same reason no one else wanted to talk about the past; it hurt too much to remember the world that used to be. But now it turned out that there was more to it than that.

"The PM, the King, everyone considered valuable was moved in so they could be defended. There were plans for what we would do after the threat was eliminated..." he shook his head. "...we were going to start again and build a new world."

"They over ran the castle?" Ben guessed.

Aaron nodded. "We had a few weeks but it was never going to last. If we'd had a few more days we might have been able to get more people out. In the end it was just me and Anthony."

Ben had been too young when it happened to really consider what happened to the leaders of the country and now that he was old enough they seemed distant and unimportant. He doubted he would have been too concerned about it at the time. He knew that at some point in the past there had been a king but what did that matter now?

"There were weapons there?" he said.

Aaron nodded. "We took what we could but it's only enough for a few people." He nodded towards the dam. "If this works we'll need to arm the whole village."

"Maybe it would be easier to just move on," he said. "We live on boats after all."

"Yeah, right. Half of them are so built up it would be easier to move a block of flats. Besides, if the vamps are smart enough to build something like this they'll just catch up with us again. We need a way to defend ourselves."

Ben nodded. It made sense and he couldn't see a way around it. "Why didn't you say that before? Why all that rubbish about getting supplies?"

Aaron lowered his voice. "Do you trust him?"

"Who?"

"Nicholas. Do you trust him?"

Ben thought about it. He didn't like Nicholas, that was for sure, but he trusted him, didn't he? He had the best interest of Sanctuary in mind. "Don't you?"

Aaron rubbed the back of his neck and when he was done, said simply, "no."

How long had they been there now? The darkness was creeping over them like a blanket. He wanted to know more, wanted to find out why Aaron didn't trust Nicholas but this was not the time. "We have to tell him," he said.

"I think you're right. I wanted you to see it first."

The dark crossed over the watery valley between the two banks. Ben thought he began to sense, rather than see, movement. The bank opposite had been stripped of vegetation and looked a lot like the parts of Back Field that had been ploughed. Now the ground seemed to pulse and undulate as though something were pushing from below.

"We need to move," said Aaron.

Ben nodded his head in agreement and started to turn until he felt Aaron's hand on his arm.

"Ben, I don't think we should tell people about this."

"It's between you and me," he said. "But we tell Nicholas in the morning."

Aaron nodded. "Agreed."

He wanted to get into why Aaron didn't trust Nicholas but now wasn't the time. They walked back through the path of broken trees and arrived to find the brothers with their crossbows aimed at their hearts.

When they saw that it was them they relaxed and lowered their weapons. "We thought you was ... one of them."

There was no time to discuss that either. Ben led the way back along the river. Despite being thirsty and exhausted they moved quickly. Ben, at the front, motivated by the image of the dam and the thought of how many vamps were now behind them. How, he wondered, could they have been so close for so long? Shouldn't they have known?There were so many questions and he knew he wouldn't get answers to them all.

4

They sent the two brothers home and made their way to the Island. The air was golden blue, the colours seemed deeper and more real than they had before. Sanctuary was silent in the early morning and Ben looked out across the water as if he had never really seen it before.

It looked vulnerable in a way it never had. He saw a bunch of people who had been exiled from their natural home on land to live as refugees on the water. They were kidding themselves that this could be a permanent way of life.

They saw Nicholas arrive on his shiny raft. His two bodyguards

(bullies)

flanking him. He saw them as he climbed onto the Island and walked towards them.

"Did you find her?" he said.

It took Ben a moment to realise he was talking about Kirsty. He shook his head, feeling bad for the girl they had forgotten about. "We need to speak to you," he said.

"Of course, my office is always open."

Five minutes later Ben was back in The General's office, a cup of something like coffee in his hands. The aroma of it woke him from the daze he had fallen into without realising it.

"We found something," he said. He was unsure how to tell Nicholas about the dam. As much as he disliked the man he knew he cared about Sanctuary.

"What is it Ben," he said calmly. "Whatever it is we can deal with it."

"The vamps are building a dam," he said.

Ben explained as best he could their discovery of the dam without revealing that Aaron had already known about it. He described its structure and location and their best guess about what it meant. Nicholas listened in silence, nodding his head from time to time.

"This is troubling," said Nicholas when Ben had finished. It was an under reaction compared to what he had expected. But he wasn't to be put off.

"If we leave at once we can be back inside of two weeks," he said.

"Leave?" said Nicholas, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise. "Where on earth would you go?"

"London," said Ben, not picking up on the fact that Nicholas knew exactly what he was talking about but feigning ignorance.

"Why in the world would you go there?"

"We have to be prepared to fight them," he said. "We need weapons and Aaron knows where we can find them."

It was the first time he had mentioned Aaron by name. He had been sitting at the back of the room in perfect silence.

"Ah yes, Aaron," said Nicholas. "The man of mystery. Quite a coincidence that you happened upon this little construction isn't it?"

Aaron remained silent. Ben was worried that the conversation was beginning to stray from its original purpose.

"We have to do something," he said.

Nicholas leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together beneath his chin. He did not speak for a moment and Ben thought he was considering the problem.

"I tell you what I think, shall I?" said Nicholas.

Neither Ben nor Aaron spoke.

"I think you knew about this before, let's say around about the time you suggested a trip to London last time. What was that, say six months ago?"

It sounded about right to Ben. It was long enough ago that an election had been held and Nicholas had been voted in for another term. Long enough ago that farmers had been recruited and work had begun on the Back Field. He nodded.

"And would you say," he said, looking at Aaron, "would you say that any significant progress has been made in that time?"

Ben turned to look at Aaron.

He hesitated and Ben wondered if he would lie. "A lot of the progress might be things we can't see," he said.

Nicholas nodded. "As I suspected." He turned to Ben: "I suppose you didn't notice the structure the last time you were out that way?"

Ben shook his head.

"So for all we know what you saw was up to two years old?"

Ben wanted to tell him he was wrong but how could he explain a 'feeling' he'd had.

Nicholas sighed. "Let's say for the sake of argument that this is the work of vamps. Incidentally it could just as easily be the work of another human settlement. But let's say its vamps: isn't it possible that they gave up on it months ago?"

"Why would they..." said Ben.

"Perhaps they didn't have the manpower, or perhaps they simply didn't know how," he said. "But doesn't that seem more likely than you stumbling on a work in progress that hasn't changed for six months?"

Ben turned to look at Aaron for help but he offered nothing. He couldn't understand how Nicholas could be so dismissive of what he saw as an obvious threat.

"Now I appreciate you gentlemen coming to me with this information," he said, "but I suspect concern for the girl and sleep deprivation have made it seem to you like a bigger deal than it actually is."

He dismissed them from his office and all of a sudden the fact he hadn't slept for more than twenty-four hours did seem like a big deal. He got onto the raft with Nicholas and weaved through the traffic approaching the Island. People called to each other across the water, some of them might have even called to him, but they seemed distant now.

They travelled along the river towards Ben's boat in silence but they didn't stop there. He glanced up at Aaron as they floated past but he could tell by the look on his face that it hadn't been a mistake. He said nothing and waited to see where he would end up.

A few minutes later Aaron steered them up to a jetty beside a burned out boat. The windows were black and the wood charred and rotten. It was on the periphery of the village, the subject of occasional complaints from neighbours who would rather have it removed. He wanted to ask Aaron what they were doing there but Aaron would know he was wondering that and had apparently decided not to tell him.

Ben climbed out of the boat and Aaron threw a dirty canvas over the top of it. From a distance it would look like another piece of debris. The wooden struts complained as they walked along the pier and climbed aboard the boat.

It smelled of smoke, tobacco and wood. He could hear muttered voices coming from inside. Aaron knocked and then pulled open the door and led Ben inside.

5

He was sitting in a broken leather armchair looking at three other men. One of them he recognised at Anthony, the other two he didn't think he had seen before. Aaron sat on a stool to his left. The boat was as battered on the inside as out; the bare floorboards were cracked and dirty, the walls stripped of colour. There was little furniture except the chairs. Black paint on the windows blocked any sunlight. The room was lit by three oil lamps burning on the floor.

No one spoke.

It was obviously some kind of secret meeting but to what end he had no idea. After a few minutes of silence he turned to look at Aaron, "what's this all..." (about?) But Aaron shook his head and he stopped talking.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and it opened. Two women came in, one he recognised as Sandra Wheeler and the other he didn't know.

"Sorry I'm late," said Sandra, "I couldn't get away from Louise."

Louise was Sandra's daughter. She sat down in one of the chairs opposite him, the other woman remained standing awkwardly by the door.

"This is Kris," said Sandra and they all turned to look at her. "Take a seat."

Kris sat down next to Ben. He felt increasingly uncomfortable in the confined space at the centre of attention. Aaron stood up.

"This is Anthony, Daniel and Sol," he said indicating the three men. "I'm Aaron and this is Sandra."

Ben looked at the Daniel and Sol. Daniel was a few years older than him, his blond hair starting to thin. Sol had shoulder length dark hair and didn't look older than twenty.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" said Ben. He should have been at home by now, the twins would be waking up and Mary would be wondering where he was.

"We saw the dam today," said Aaron. "We spoke to the General about going to London again but he refused."

"We knew he would," said the man Daniel, his voice was gruff with a slightly northern accent that Ben couldn't place.

"But it was the right thing to do," said Aaron. "Now we have to decide what happens next."

"What's to decide?" said Daniel. "We take the boats and go, just like we planned."

There were no objections. Ben felt as if he was agreeing to go just by being there. Plans and arrangements were thrown around the room so quickly that he couldn't keep up. When he came to leave with Aaron he was tired and confused but aware that he had agreed to be ready the following morning before sunrise.

"And don't tell anyone," said Aaron as he climbed off the little raft onto the jetty outside his own home. He nodded his agreement but truthfully the only thing he was thinking about was a warm bed.

6

He slept fitfully throughout the day, waking frequently fearing that he had overslept and missed the morning. He had no idea whether they would wait for him or simply leave him behind. He did know that he wanted to go.

It would be hard leaving Mary and the twins, harder still because he couldn't tell them what he was really doing. There seemed little chance that the vamps would complete the dam in the two weeks he expected to be gone but before leaving he reminded Mary that there were weapons under the bed.