The Bitter End (6 page)

"Who have you brought us this time Frank?" said Margie.

"The Thompson's," he said. "Found 'em down by the aqueduct. Had a map."

"A map?" said Margie with obviously staged surprise. "How did they come across that I wonder."

"Said he found it on the boat," explained Frank.

"I see. And you've vetted them?"

Hannah was well aware that this was a performance being put on for their benefit. She saw Frank nod to the question.

"Well lets see then," said Margie. "What have we got here." She put on a pair of black rimmed glasses and stood up. She walked around the table and began to examine them one by one.

"Name?"

"Dennis."

She nodded as if it mattered. "And what did you do, before all of this?"

"I worked at Lloyds of London," he said. "Not a stockbroker though."

Margie nodded. Hannah glanced at the table behind her and saw the four men watching. One of them was writing down what was being said. "Any military experience?" she said.

Dennis shook his head.

"Have you ever fired a gun?"

Dennis shook his head again.

"A pity. And what about you?" she said stopping in front of Hannah.

She told the woman her name and that her last job was in marketing. She had never fired a gun and the closest she had come to military service was a year in the Girl Guides.

"Are the children yours?" she said.

"They are," said Hannah.

"Good, you can't be too careful. What are their names?"

Hannah told her and it was noted by the man at the table.

"Well then," said Margie. "Welcome to Sanctuary. You will find us a pleasant community. We have very few rules but we don't tolerate antisocial behaviour. We look after each other. Frank will show you where you can moor up for now, until we can find you a permanent spot."

They followed Frank out of the cabin. She scowled at him when he looked at her. He led them further down the river to an empty space between two small boats.

"You'll be alright here," he said. "Few days we'll see about getting you somewhere more permanent. Maybe another couple of boats."

She didn't thank him. She couldn't forget that he'd lied to them all. He'd spied on them to make sure they were 'suitable' for Sanctuary. He left them to get settled in and she tried to talk to Dennis about it but he dismissed her concerns.

That night Frank returned with food and water for them but he didn't stay to talk. He told them he had work to do.

1

Ben crouched in the long grass and watched the rabbit move. It loped a few metres and then stopped, lifted its head and looked around, twitching its pink nose. Ben held a homemade spear in his hand. It was made of a piece of tree that he had sanded and made straight and on the killing end there was a razor sharp tip made out of scavenged metal. They did have guns at Sanctuary but they were noisy, cumbersome things. They used them for defence rather than hunting.

Mentally he had drawn out a circle on the ground and now he was waiting for the rabbit to hop into it. He held his breath as it came nearer, paused to sniff the air and then continued into his killing circle.

He launched the spear through the air. It was silent but his grunt echoed and a flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree. Sometimes there were animals bigger than rabbits to hunt and those were good days, but they were few and far between. Most days they had to make do with rabbit meat or nothing.

He crossed the long grass to where the rabbit lay pinned to the ground. It wasn't moving. He pulled the weapon free and shouldered the furry meat. He carried it back to his hiding place where he strung it up with the other four he had caught that morning and prepared to make his way home.

He could remember a time when they hadn't lived on a boat but it was a distant memory, vague and unsettling, tinged as it was with their flight from the vampires. The name had been settled on a long time ago. Sanctuary was safe though. The nearest land was more than a mile away and as far as he was aware no vampire had ever attempted to reach them. The only thing they had to worry about was pirates.

He approached the village in the little raft that he had made himself out of the discarded hulls of other boats. When his parents had agreed that he was old enough to go out by himself he had spent long summer days roaming up and down the river collecting useful bits and pieces.

The laughter of children carried on the wind. Careless laughter, he thought, most of them had never even seen a vamp. Most of them didn't know that there was anything out there that could hurt them. He could hear splashing in the water and as he got closer tiny waves rocked the little boat.

Ben rowed through the outskirts of Sanctuary, where the people who had come later lived. Their boats were mostly single hulls and they were crammed in together. None of them seemed to mind, they were simply happy to have somewhere they could feel safe.

The Island had been expanded over the years and there were now three structures on top of it. The oldest was the Village Hall, where the General - the title persisted, although it had been years since the leader of Sanctuary had been an actual
 
military General - worked. It was where Billy and his family had gone when they'd first arrived and where every new arrival since had gone to be vetted. There was an annex at the rear where the weapons were stored. The biggest building was the
 
hospital. It had only been finished the year before but the General had big plans for it.

The last building was the Market. A long narrow building where the residents of Sanctuary could trade food. It was meant to prevent private bartering, which led to arguments and, once, a particularly memorable murder. Ben played the game of trading there but he was well aware that private trading still went on.

He tied his little boat to the dock and climbed off. He ignored the Market and the Hospital and went straight to the Village Hall where he found the General waiting for him.

General was an elected position in the village. Every four years there was a meeting where prospective candidates put their names forwards and gave little speeches about why they would be good at the job. Then the citizens of Sanctuary voted. The current holder of the title was a man called Nicholas Clipper. He was forty-three and the youngest person to hold the position yet.
 

It was claimed that he was a member of the royal family. Although, by unspoken consent, no one discussed their past, Ben wouldn't have put it past Nicholas to drop the claim casually into a conversation or to make sure it was overheard by people he knew would repeat it. He had no idea whether it was true or not but the claim seemed to have strengthened his position and the power the role had.

Ben approached him. The desk that he sat behind was grander than the one Margie had used. He remembered her fondly, they had become good friends over the years. He still missed her. There was no one else in the Hall which was another mark of Nicholas's; he still had a council, that was a necessity prescribed by their laws, but whenever he could he chose to work alone.

"Ben," he said, looking up from the book he was writing in. "It's good to see you."

He dropped one of the rabbits on the table.

"Are you coming for dinner tonight?" said Nicholas. "Cora will do wonders with this."

As well as being General, Nicholas was also his brother in-law. It still didn't mean he had to like him. He had twenty-years on Cora and Ben didn't think she was happy, or maybe he just hoped she wasn't.

He nodded. "If you'll have me."

"Of course, you're always welcome. You know that."

He left the Village Hall and walked around to the hospital where he found his mum hauling planks of wood.

"Hi mum," he said as he walked towards her. She looked old now, he thought, not like his mum at all. Her hair was white, short and thinning. Her face verging on gaunt. She wasn't old, not really, not quite sixty in fact, but the last few years had been hard, especially since his father had passed away.

"Ben," she smiled, standing up slowly but not able to make it all the way.

He dropped his rabbits and hurried over to help her, he put his arm under her shoulder and walked her across to an old chair that was on the pile to be carried inside. "You should't be doing this," he said.

"Somebody needs to. It's not going to get inside by itself."

"Yeah but what about Mary or Libby? Can't they do it?"

"They're busy."

"And your back's bad."

She smiled at him and suddenly he was eleven years old again, back on the boat thinking this was all a big game. He'd thought that it would end when he'd had enough but it hadn't. They'd come here and they'd stayed here and he didn't think they would ever leave.

He stood and fussed over his mother for a while, made sure she was looking after herself and telling her that she should let him know if she needed anything. She dismissed his concerns in much the same way he had dismissed hers when he was a child.

"Hannah are you busy?"

He turned to the hospital where Mary Stoker was standing. He smiled at her and she walked out to join them.

"Hi Ben," she said sweetly. "I didn't know you were back."

"Got in this morning," he said.

"Have you got plans for tonight yet?"

"Clipper wants to see me."

"Maybe tomorrow night then?"

"Maybe."

She stood there looking at him for a moment longer as if she expected him to say something else. When he didn't she turned back to his mum. "Can you come in and give us a hand Hannah? Some of the Raeborn kids turned over an old oil drum and they're covered in the stuff."

His mum smiled and said she'd be right in. When Mary had gone she turned to him. "Don't you like her?"

"Mum!" He was thirty one but he still didn't want to talk to his mum about his love life."

His mum seemed unaware of his discomfort, or maybe she just didn't care. "If you're not interested you need to let her know. Mary's a nice girl and she deserves to settle down."

He sighed. "I've got to go," he said. He helped her out of the chair and watched until she disappeared inside the hospital.

It wasn't that he didn't like Mary, he thought as he rowed back towards his long boat, he just wasn't sure he wanted to settle down. Settling down was what Cora had done and he thought that it had left a part of her dead. The wild side. Or maybe that was just who she had settled down with.

2

"So tell us Ben, what did you find on your latest expedition?"

He was at Nicholas and Cora's home. A boat so lavishly decorated that by rights it shouldn't have been able to float. One whole long boat had been converted into a dining room, a long narrow table took up so much space that they sat with their backs against the walls and the food had to be lowered in from above. Nicholas sat at the tiller end as was his right as the man of the boat. Cora sat opposite him at the far end of the table. Ben sat next to his mother who had lived with them for the last twelve months.

"Is there anything we should be worried about?" added Nicholas with a laugh. Coming from anyone else Ben would have laughed. It was well known that Sanctuary was the safest place they could be. Twenty years and no attacks. Somehow, coming from Nicholas it sounded like inappropriate casualness, as if he didn't consider the vamps a threat at all.

Ben shook his head.

"Ah well, another gala year then."

He supposed it probably would be, although what he said about there being no danger wasn't entirely true. It just wasn't something he felt like mentioning to Nicholas, even though he knew that he should; he was the General after all. The trouble was he would just laugh at it and Ben wouldn't be able to blame him. It wasn't so much that he had seen danger as felt it and how did you explain a feeling to someone like him?

So he said nothing and enjoyed the food and the wine that was generously offered. Nicholas came from a wealthy family, although that sort of wealth didn't really mean anything anymore. For a long time Ben had wondered how someone could go from being rich in the old world to rich in the new one. There didn't seem to be any justice in it.

It wasn't until he was an adult that he realised that the sort of wealth Nicholas possessed had nothing to do with money. It was down to an ingrained habit, a willingness to take things, to feel like you deserved them somehow. Nicholas was rich now for the same reason his ancestors had been rich: he'd taken what he thought should be his all along.

Ben nodded and smiled and made small talk through the rest of the dinner. When it was time to leave he kissed his mum and Cora and shook Richards hand. He was glad to get into his little boat and row back home.

The village was lit by dozens of candles that floated in metal trays on the river which reflected and multiplied their light. He had no trouble navigating the short journey back to his boat, he had done it so many times now that he could have made it without any light at all, but, even so, he didn't see the boat tied up outside him home until he was almost on top of it.