The Moon Stealers and The Children of the Light (10 page)

As soon as the other two were inside the car Steven
put his foot on the accelerator and spun the car round in a squeal of rubber so
they were facing away from the sea.
Georgia
sat beside Steven with the map spread out across her
knee and directed him out of the holiday park.

As soon as it was possible, Rhys Avall had ridden his
motorbike away from the
Forest
of
Dean
towards
London
. He entered
London
from the west side, beneath the normally busy flight
path to
Heathrow
Airport
, but today, there were no aeroplanes in the sky
waiting to land. He continued towards the centre of
London
and a small area north of Brentford where his son, Steffan,
rented a small apartment along with many other commuters to the city.

As he entered the densely populated area, the houses appeared
to enclose the road on both sides. Rhys rode his bike slowly, being cautious
and checking each corner building for a street sign, as well as any sign of
life. After a few minutes of coasting along the pavements, which were clearer
to ride along than the roads, he spotted the street name he was looking for. He
wedged the bike between two cars then checked the street to make sure no one
was looking before unhooking the Donestre sword.

The road was deserted.

The only sound seemed to come from a loose sign that
hung dangerously from a train overpass at the far end of the road. He hugged
the brick walls of the buildings, watching all around as he walked along the
road. Occasionally there were signs of break-ins where windows had been smashed
or parking meters forced open for the change, but otherwise he saw no sign of
life.

Rhys stood in front of a building and read the sign
fixed to the wall. It was the address he had been looking for - Ellesmere
Apartments. The security door was bent and twisted where it had been kicked in
by looters. He stepped over the door and into a small carpeted entrance hall.
On either side of the hall were doors to the ground floor apartments, both of
them open. Rhys held tightly to his sword ready to use if looters attacked him,
or the tenants of the apartments, if they were still alive, tried to defend
their property.

In the centre of the hall was a narrow staircase. He
started walking up the steps, treading gently to avoid making too much noise.
At the top of the stairs were two more apartments directly above the ones he
had seen on the ground floor.

The door to apartment number three was unlocked.

He reached out, pushed it open and stepped inside. As
soon as he looked around, he could tell that no one was currently living there.
Everything had been ransacked and thrown about by looters looking for anything
of value to steal. Rhys pushed the door back into its splintered frame so he
could have some privacy inside his son’s apartment.

The first thing he noticed was the framed photographs
on the wall. The first showed a picture of his wife’s sister, Melodie, proudly
standing next to a man in his early twenties. From the cap and gown he was
wearing, Rhys could see the photograph was of Steffan on his graduation day
from university.

He wandered around the apartment and stood beside a
desk that looked out of a window to the front of the building. On the carpet at
his feet was a small free-standing photo frame that had been knocked from the
desk. He leant down, picked it up and turned it over. What he saw took his
breath away. In the frame was an old tatty black and white photograph, faded in
places with small red flecks of rust. In the photograph was a picture of Rhys,
his wife and their son, only weeks old and wrapped in a crocheted blanket.

Rhys picked up a fallen chair, sat at the desk and
looked at the photograph. It had been so many years since he had seen it that
he had almost forgotten that it existed. He placed the photo on the top of the
desk and slid one of the drawers out. Inside were lots of receipts as well as
old tube train and bus tickets. However, the papers in the drawer on the other
side of the desk were more neatly organised. He gathered them underneath his
fingers and spread them out on the desk top. Amongst credit card and bank
statements, he found several payslips, all marked with the HM Government stamp
at the top. He went back to some of the bus and underground tickets. Most of
them had their journey destination as Vauxhall station in the centre of
London
. Rhys looked around the room and saw the iconic red
and white A to Z map of
London
on the book shelf. Flicking through the pages, he
found Vauxhall station on the south side of the
Thames
right
next to one of the most famous British Government buildings in the city - the
MI6 building.

He decided to leave immediately for the MI6 building
and see if he could find any trace of his son then come back to the apartment
for the night, just in case Steffan returned.

He picked up his sword, retraced his steps out of the
building and back to the motorbike.

The streets of
London
were not so easy to negotiate as some of the bigger,
less busy ones that he had ridden on earlier. He followed the main artery into
the city until he arrived at the back of
Buckingham
Palace
Gardens
then turned right in the direction of the river
Thames
. As he
approached
Vauxhall
Bridge
, he could see a massive pile of rubble on the other
side where the MI6 building should have been. The twisted metal framework stuck
up from the stone and river water that had flooded the site leaving nothing
more than the fractured skeleton of the building. Covering the bridge was a
thick white layer of dust that gave the area an eerie ghostly feeling. He
parked the bike on the north side of the
Thames
and
looked over to the remains.

‘I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,’ said a man
shuffling up the steps from below the bridge. ‘Don’t worry, I’m no threat to
you,’ he said, seeing Rhys instinctively reach down towards the sword that was
strapped to his bike. ‘And, if you’re thinking of robbing from me, you will be
disappointed. I have nothing I’m afraid.’

‘What happened to the MI6 building?’ Rhys asked.

‘Don’t know. There was an explosion one afternoon. The
sound could be heard right across the city. Like I said - I wouldn’t go that
way. No way of telling how strong the bridge is. It’s already got some cracks
appearing in it.’ He nodded towards a lamp post in the centre of the bridge
which was tipping at an awkward angle. At the base Rhys could see a black split
in the pavement, made all the more obvious by the lack of white brick dust.

‘Where are you living?’

‘Just like during the war - in times of trouble,
Londoners make their way to the underground. There aren’t many of us, but we
are surviving.’

Rhys wondered if the old man had heard his son’s name.
‘Is there anyone you know called Steffan Avall. Or, he might be known as Steven
Knight?’

‘No, can’t say I’ve heard his name.’

‘Thanks.’ Rhys decided to head back to Steffan’s
apartment to see if he could find any other clue to his son’s location. He
twisted the handle on the motorbike, waking up the engine and began to turn
around.

‘You might want to try the Wailing Wall though,’ the
old man suddenly advised.

‘What’s that?’

‘That’s where everyone goes when they’re trying to
find someone.

Rhys nodded. ‘Thanks, I’ll take a look.’

He roared back up the road towards
Buckingham
Palace
, then straight down The Mall and into

It was eerily silent.

The usually busy tourist spot in
London
was empty of people. Even the ever present pigeons
had flown and were hiding somewhere else. Rhys wheeled the bike around Nelson's
column and past the water fountains that were now redundant. Green algae had already
begun to grow over the silent water in the pools beneath the fountains. He left
the bike at the bottom of the steps then walked towards the columned front of
the National Gallery building. Around the base of the columns Rhys could see
the creamy-grey stone wall was covered with writing and the odd piece of paper.
It was almost like the massive piece of graffiti had become a statement on artwork
for the future of mankind.

Rhys studied the writing. There were names written in
various colours of lipstick, marker pen and paint, whatever people could find.
Names were usually accompanied by locations around
London
. In other places photographs had been taped to the
wall. Some were small photos of two happy people taken inside a photo booth that
would have been kept inside a wallet or purse, others were head shots that had
probably been kept in frames and proudly displayed on the wall of a home. Every
name and photo represented a person that was lost, but not forgotten.

At one end of the long wall Rhys could see a woman
trying to stick a photo to the wall. Every few seconds she would sob silently
and wipe her nose on her sleeve. It surprised Rhys how the human race had
learnt to live so quietly and indiscreetly beneath the threat of the creatures.
Listening to the woman crying over her lost relative made Rhys understand why this
place had been nicknamed The Wailing Wall.

He quickly scanned the wall, looking for his son’s
name or a photograph that sparked some sort of recognition in him, but saw
nothing. He knew that he would have to leave soon to get back to the apartment
before the creatures came out, but he didn’t want to leave without putting up a
message for Steffan, just in case he happened to visit.

Looking around him, he saw some bottles of nail paint
that had been kicked into a corner. He went over and picked them up, checking
each one to see if there was any paint left inside. He discarded two of the
bottles but took a shocking red colour back to the wall. Because of what he had
found at his sister-in-law's home at the
Forest
of
Dean
, he assumed that his son was using the English
version of his name together with his sister-in-law's surname. As he began
writing the letters, two other people arrived in a car and walked directly
towards the wall. The man and the woman knew exactly where to go, checking to
see if their message was still there and hadn’t been covered by someone else’s
photograph or looking for a sign that their relative was still alive. They
glanced across the names, checking to see if they knew anyone. Rhys continued
with his son’s surname. The red paint made his name stand out. He contemplated
what to put under Steffan’s name. His son didn’t know Rhys existed. He decided
to write Melodie’s name together with his address in Brentford. Steffan was
more likely to respond to a name and address he recognised if he happened to
see it.

‘Steven Knight?’ said the man who had arrived in the
car.

‘Do you know him?’ asked Rhys hopefully.

‘I heard the name back at the Fort.’

‘What’s the Fort?’

‘
Fort
Halstead
, in
Kent
.' The man turned to the lady he had arrived with.
'Kim, wasn’t one of the guys from Halstead called Steven Knight?'

'I think so,' his companion replied. 'But he left with
those other two.'

'Where did he go?' Rhys asked.

'There were rumours going around that they had left to
find other survivors. Went to the
Isle
of Wight
,' said the man.

The lady nodded. 'I heard someone say they were going
to rescue a child that had been taken by another community.'

'How long ago was that?'

'Several days now,' Kim replied. 'Come to Halstead
with us, we have antibiotics to stop you getting sick from the creatures. We're
growing plants and have a supply of water.'

'Thanks. I will visit Halstead, but there is something
I need to do first.' Grateful for the information, Rhys shook their hands and
jumped down the steps back to his motorbike. He intended to return to Steffan’s
apartment for the night then head off towards the
Isle of Wight
as soon as it was safe to do so.

Edgar, Max and Joe drove in silence along the country
lanes until they reached a wide expanse of motorway that directed them south
towards
Birmingham
. The two boys had decided to sit together in the back
of the car, aware of the tension and fear that seemed to be oozing from Edgar.
They knew the poison from one of the creatures was racing through Edgar’s blood
stream, making him weaker and paler every day. Although they didn’t want to
admit it; they were also concerned about getting too close to Edgar for fear of
catching the creature’s disease themselves.

Negotiating the country lanes had been tricky and
slow, but once they joined the motorway, they noticed a distinct reduction in
cars, and those that had been abandoned were littered along the embankments and
out of their way.

Their progress began to gather momentum.

Two hours after they had left Ingleton, Edgar turned
the car off the motorway and headed towards
England
’s border with
Wales
. The three lane motorway reduced into a two lane road
that carved through towns and villages, then swung above a built up area of
houses and office blocks towards a bridge. Max and Joe looked out of the window
as they crossed a river. Cars were half submerged in the water, shifting and rocking
in the flow, whilst the sides of lorries provided platforms for a brave handful
of Moorhens to stand on and pick scraps from the water. Once over the bridge
the car turned right and followed a route that took them along the north coast
of
Wales
.

Eventually they pulled into a service station.

‘We need more fuel,’ Edgar said to the boys in a
dejected voice.

They all got out and stretched the tiredness from
their legs.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Max.

Edgar had already begun looking at the abandoned cars
in the car park, testing the doors to see if any were open and peering in
through the windows. At the sound of Max’s voice he turned and looked directly
at the boys with sadness in his eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ he replied as he walked back towards
them. ‘I’ve been so aware that my fate has nearly arrived and my time here will
end, that I forgot about the two of you. At some point soon I will have to
abandon you to fend for yourselves. You deserve to know all of the
information.’

Edgar reached into the car they had been travelling in
and opened the glove box. He pulled out a folded road map of the
British Isles
then walked over to a small patch of grass at the
edge of the car park. He carefully began unfolding it, cautious of the soft and
fragile creases in the paper, then began to weigh the corners down with any
stone he could find. Max and Joe stood over him watching.

‘We have now entered
Wales
,’ began Edgar pointing to a road on the map to the
west of an area marked
Chester
. ‘We are heading for Avalon, the magical island where
King Arthur was taken following his fateful battle at Camlann, to recover from
his wounds.’

‘Have you ever been to Avalon before?’ asked Joe.

There was a pause before Edgar answered.

‘No,’ he eventually said. ‘No-one I know has entered
Avalon and returned.’

‘Then how do we know it exists?’

‘We don’t. There have been many stories about an island
where everything grows of its own accord and the hilltops are covered with
fruit trees. Everyone is happy and carefree; there is no war and no famine.’

‘Is it just a place for good people to go to when they
die?’ asked Max.

‘I suppose it is a heaven on earth,’ replied Edgar.
‘Some people know Avalon as The Fortunate Isle, as well as the Isle of Apples.
Whatever name it goes by, all agree that Avalon is the source of the Elixir of
Life.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Historically, the Elixir of Life was a magical potion
that, when drank from a certain cup, gives the drinker eternal life. But Avalon
is
the source of life. It creates life and sustains life.’

‘Can it cure you?’

‘Yes, but at a price. I will never be able to leave
the shores of the island. If I did, the magic would end and my body would age
in a fraction of normal time until I was nothing more than a pile of dust.’

‘What about us? Will Max and I be able to come back
once we’ve entered Avalon?’

‘Yes. Avalon is a safe haven for those that have
enjoyed a full and rewarding life, not those just starting a mortal one. One
day, when you are old and grey, with your grandchildren at your feet, your soul
might find its way back to Avalon.’

‘Do you know where Avalon is?’ Joe asked.

‘The landscape may have changed a lot over the years,
but one thing will have stayed the same. The lake we must cross through to
reach Avalon is fed by water drained from the cup of Adam and Eve.’

‘Aren’t they in the bible?’

Edgar nodded.

‘God created Adam and Eve to populate his planet. You
could say that he gave them the Elixir of Life. To mark the location of the
lake, two big monoliths of stone watch over the lake from the top of a mountain
called Tryfan.’

Edgar searched the map he had spread out, tracing his
finger across the paper until he reached the
Snowdon
mountain range. He let it rest beneath a label that read
Y Tryfan
.

‘Beneath the shadow of the mountain is Llyn Idwal, or
Lake
Idwal
. We cannot access the lake from the road. We will
need to walk the final part of the journey to the lake. It will be a tiring
walk that could be made worse by the weather, or the presence of the creatures.
It won’t be easy. However, it could be nothing in comparison to what awaits us
in Avalon. We will need the Silver Bough once again to open the gateway to
another world.’

‘If we make it through, what are we supposed to do
there?’

‘My sword, Ethera, was forged by Nimue, a Priestess of
Avalon, as were all of the twelve swords of power. One by one they have
returned their spirit and power back to Avalon. By combining the strength of
the swords, we should be able to generate a source of pure energy like the one
that came from my sword in the forest clearing, but on a larger scale. Lady
Flora discovered that the light from my sword blinded the creatures. Without
their sight they are vulnerable and incapable of feeding. With Lady Flora’s
help, nature can fight back and reclaim the planet.’

‘What if we fail?’ Joe asked the question they were
all thinking but were too scared to ask.

‘If we fail,’ repeated Edgar, ‘the human race is as
good as dead.’

There was an uncomfortable silence, filled only by a
gentle whistling sound caused by the side of the map lifting in the breeze and
cutting the wind as it flowed across the grass.

‘How long will the walk take us?’ Max asked, studying
the map.

‘It will be slow. We won’t be able to make it today,’
replied Edgar. ‘When it is safe to come out, we will start the journey to
Avalon. Before then we will need to find a safe place to hide from the
creatures for the night.’

Edgar instinctively looked up at the sky. It was now
mid afternoon and, although the sun was still out, clouds in the distance were
beginning to form. Swirls of grey mixed with white where blowing across the
stretch of the
Irish Sea
between
Ireland
and
Wales
and would soon be above them.

‘We need to find shelter before the daylight fades any
further,’ said Joe.

‘I know,’ said Edgar. ‘Let’s get moving as quickly as
possible.’ With the children’s help he folded the map back together and went
back to searching the abandoned cars whilst Joe and Max took the bags out of
the car ready to be transferred. The sound of an engine igniting made them turn
towards a blue BMW.

‘Three quarters full,’ shouted Edgar with delight.
‘That should easily get us to Avalon.’

They packed everything into the back of the BMW and
scavenged any sealed food and bottled water from the service station shelves
then drove back onto the main road.

The general feeling inside the car seemed to be a lot
lighter than it had been since they left Ingleton. They happily munched on bars
of chocolate and dry cereal from cardboard boxes whilst all the time, keeping a
cautious eye on the sky.

They hadn’t gone far before the clouds from the
Irish Sea
began to move closer to the Welsh coast. In the distance Edgar noticed the
pointed white steeple of a church to the right of the road they were on.

‘Let’s shelter in there,’ Edgar muttered to the boys
as he pointed to the white church. In the distance they heard the hollow rumble
of thunder. ‘The darkness brings the creatures out to hunt.’

As they got nearer to the church, Edgar noticed that
it was separated from the road by a stone wall. He continued past until he
reached the next exit and followed a sign for Bodelwyddan. The narrow road
swung over the top of the road they had just been on and ran parallel with it
back towards the church they had passed.

Edgar quickly parked alongside neat rows of white
grave stones and all three quickly jumped out of the car as the distant rumble
of thunder rolled around the sky above them, accompanied by a greyness that
seemed to wash all colour from their surroundings. They each grabbed a bag from
the back seat and began to run along a narrow concrete path between some of the
gravestones.

Edgar casually glanced at the white stones. They were
all identical, smoothly cut pieces of stone, with a maple leaf carved into the
surface above a single name. He paused momentarily understanding what the white
stones actually were.

They had parked beside a war cemetery.

The stones were the war graves of soldiers who had
died during one of the world wars. Edgar realised that he was in the midst of a
different kind of world war, one that would determine the entire future of the
planet.
Would there be anyone left to honour the dead from this war?
Edgar quickly returned back to the present by a loud crack of thunder from
above, followed by large drops of rain that began to patter gently on the
ground around him.

‘Come on,’ said Joe who was already standing against
the wall of the church. He beckoned to Edgar with his hand.

Somewhere in the darkening sky came the familiar
scream of a creature. They all looked up, searching the sky for signs of black
shadows. Edgar ran towards the boys, not knowing if they had been spotted or
not. Together they sprinted beside the church towards the entrance doors
nestled beneath a tall steeple. Edgar lifted the heavy door latch and the three
of them tumbled into the porch of the church.

Edgar scrambled backwards and slammed the door shut
behind them, muffling the sounds of the sky erupting into another rumble of
thunder, closely followed by an ear splitting shriek.