Reapers Mist: Third in the Reaper Trilogy by Justin Gowland (2 page)

“I don’t know he said something about taking the castle away from him. Maybe he was a bit unhinged and couldn’t accept us being here. For all we know the Reapers he was supposed to have buried were people here when he came here.” I said shrugging my shoulders.

“I’ll go make you another sandwich.” She said, standing and going into the kitchen.

I hadn’t had time to actually think about what happened with Simon, but what I had just said might have been close to the mark. I mean I wasn’t going to go dig up the bodies to check, but I wouldn’t have put it past the little psycho. Maddie came back in with my second lot of fried pig and I smiled up at her. She put the plate on the table and as she walked back to the kitchen she called over her shoulder “Be careful today please!”

“I will babe.” I said and got stuck into the lovely taste of fried piggy.

It wasn’t too long after I finished and was sat feeling content with the world when Rees came in with his gear on.

“Ok, tubby let’s get a move on.” He said smiling.

“That’s like calling the kettle black. You fat git!” I said laughing and stood up, stretched and picked up my gear.

Walking out the gift shop and across the courtyard I asked “You get Becky and her team squared away?”

“Yeah, Marc insisted that I give him a shotgun. Your brother is going to shoot his foot off, I swear to god.” He said laughing.

“When everyone is back, I think it might be a good idea that tomorrow we get as many people trained in the firearms we have. Be nice to have a few more people and rifles, but we are going to have to manage with what we have. The other thing is we really need to do is start watching he causeway at least when the tides are out.”

“That’s what I thought and it might be a good idea to head over that way this morning and have a look at how we are going to do it. It would be a nice idea if there was some way to get rid of it.”

“If we were able to do that, then boats would be the way to go. And the only problem with that is there are only a few towns near here on the coast that have places to tie up. Plus, if we need to travel inland we are screwed without transport.” I replied

“I hadn’t thought of that, but even with those problems I am sure we could sort something out. Like having a sort of short term base with vehicles and short stay supplies.” He said.

“You know, that might be a good idea. I mean that small base would not the getting rid of the causeway. But it would be a handy fall back if this place ever fell.” I said.

We came to the gate leading out of the castle and automatically lifted our rifles. Rees pulled the gate closed and we looked round. I saw the Land Rover moving down the center of the village and out of sight.

“Somewhere to fall back to would be a good idea, I have to admit. I mean I don’t think we would ever get over run here, but stranger things have happened.” Rees said.

Chapter Two

Walked down the steps leading from the gate and headed over toward the outer edge of the village. We turned toward the coast of the island and headed round toward the ruins of the abbey that had stood on the island when St Cuthbert had been here. We took our time to clear the ruins and then moved on toward the west side of the island and where Simon had said he beached the boat he came here on. As we came over the top of a large sand dune I saw the boat, it was one of those small fishing boats with a cabin just big enough for one man to stand in. Simon must have run the boat into the sandbar with some speed we could see only about half the bow. The other half was buried in the sandbar.

“Well the idea to use that boat has sort of run aground!” Rees said chuckling.

“Funny fucker. Well, it wasn’t a bad idea we just need to get another boat and moor it right or have a way to get to it quickly.” I replied.

We moved off heading north along the coast of the island toward the causeway. We got there and stood looking out toward the mainland. The causeway was a large sandbar with the road from the mainland embedded in the top. From what I could see it would take some serious explosives and a lot of luck to make that impassable. But there was a glimmer of hope in that the end leading on to the mainland was raised higher than the rest for about two hundred meters before becoming level with the sandbar. We could see the sea was lapping each side of that part of the causeway. How to get rid of that part of the causeway? That was the question.

“What’s on your mind Walker?” Rees asked.

“That part just as you get to the mainland looks to have water in it all the time. I am trying to figure out if we got rid of it, would we have enough of a buffer or not. Plus there is the fact as to get rid of it.” I replied.

“When I mentioned it, I never said I would figure out how to do it. That’s what we have you for.” He said smiling.

I flipped him off and we continued on our sweep of the island. After about three hours of walking over large sand dunes and not finding anything but driftwood and small birds. We headed to the village to have a walk through. We came in through the north side of the village and split up Rees headed to the east and I took the west side, we agreed to meet at the shop. The first five houses I came across were locked up and I didn’t think it was worth while breaking in. The next house was a vicarage attached to a small church; I walked round the church and the vicarage before trying the door to the vicarage. Surprise, surprise the door was locked so I turned my attention to the church and the door pushed open at my touch.

“Aw for fuck’s sake why would this happen.” I whispered.

There hanging from the rafters of the church near the altar were six people. One looked to be the priest and the others seemed to be his flock. On the floor was leaning against the altar was a large white board, with writing on it ‘The Lord has forsaken us and left us to the evil of the Devil.’

Walking to the front I sat on a pew and put my head in my hands, I must have sat like that for a while because I heard a noise from the back of the small church and Rees said “Oh man!”

“Yeah, this is probably the most fucked up thing I have seen yet. A man of the cloth lost his faith and ended taking these people with him.” I said.

“Come on let’s cut them down and get them covered.” Rees said.

It took us an hour or more to cut them down and cover the bodies. We worked in silence and tried to be as careful with the bodies as much as we could. When we were done, we closed the door to the church. I had the intention to come back at a later time and either bury the dead or to burn it to the ground. I mean I couldn’t think of a more haunted building.

We walked down to the shop and went inside. Simon’s corpse was still where it had fallen. Rees and I took each end and carried it outside and dumped it on the pavement. We started to look at the food on the shelves and pulled off our packs and started to load up on the canned and dried goods. I made note of there being a couple of large dry dog food bags near the counter. Was I going to have to lug one of them back to the castle? (Not fucking likely, I’ll get Rees to bring the Juke down.)

We had just finished filling our packs when we heard engines coming. I looked at Rees and he nodded and ran to the other side of the road and knelt in the doorway of a house and I went to the doorway of the shop and knelt down. This way we would have a cross fire and wouldn’t end up shooting each other. I watched the end of the street where it turned in between the houses. I checked to make sure I had a round in my chamber and the safety was turned off. Aiming at the corner you could probably see the reaction on my face when the Land Rover came round the corner followed by a small car. I stood and waved and Becky flashed her lights and pulled to a stop beside the shop. It was only when we were certain that it was our team that Rees appeared from the doorway across the road.

I could see Becky and Mary in the front and Christine holding on to a large box in the back like her life depended on it. Mary wound the window down and I asked “Where’s Marc?”

“Oh, he’s in the car behind us with a couple of new people that we rescued from a small shop.” She said.

I leaned out to look at the car behind them and I could see my idiot brother sat in the passenger seat next to a middle aged man. I could see a shape sat slumped behind Marc. From what I could see it was a young man, but because of it starting to get dark I couldn’t make out much.

“Can you guys take our packs and a couple of bags of dog food back to the castle?” I asked.

“Not a problem.” She said.

Rees and I loaded our packs and we put all the bags of dog food in the back of the Land Rover and waved them off.

We stood watching those head toward the castle and Rees said “You know another bloke won’t hurt.”

“Yep! Let’s get back and if we take our time, we won’t have to help with the unloading.” I said smiling.

“That’s why you let them take everything and didn’t get a lift back!” He said.

“Watch and learn young padawan, watch and learn” I said and started my slow walk back to the castle.

Rees just shook his head and followed.

As we walked the sky got darker and the stars started to appear. I looked up and wondered how long, if at all the human race might recover from this. Mind you saying that, with me being who I am who wants to live forever. Mainly because, and this may come as a shock, I don’t ever want to die.  I have this small fear of death and at the best of times, it gnaws at me and at the worst of times I can be paralyzed by it. Now you’re thinking all the time I put myself in danger and I have this bloody great elephant in the room. Yeah, well you see I have this other side to me that just won’t let anyone I know or love get hurt. Hence, I suck it up and get on with the job at hand.

We got to the castle just as Marc and Becky were taking the last of the supplies up the steps.

“That doesn’t surprise me, you two turning up when all the work is done. Yer fuckers!” shouted Marc.

Rees and I looked at each other and at the same time flipped him off. Becky just laughed and kept on walking up the steps. We followed up and when we got to the top closed the gate and with great hardship (yeah, right!) lifted the bar up into the recesses in the wall. With the gate locked we clicked the safety’s back on and walked up the slope to the small courtyard. When we had to stop and do a double take. Derek had not only managed to get the framework done for the small arms range, but had also managed to fill the backstop with soil.

“I have to admit that when that man says he will do something he does it.” I said.

“That he does mate.” Rees said nodding.

We walked through the castle and out the back into the open courtyard. I saw people moving around in the café and gift shop, so we headed over and walked inside. All the fixtures and fittings that were in the gift shop had gone and in one corner was a desk with a computer on it. In the center of the room was what looked like the couch and chairs from the apartment upstairs? But the thing that caught our attention was the fifty inch flat screen TV, Xbox one, PS4 and assorted games. That Derek’s two girls and the young man that I had seen in the car were going through. I walked into the café to see everyone starting to sit down for the evening meal. Rees pushed past and went to sit next to Mary and looked about for Maddie. Becky stood up and waved at the man I had seen driving the car over. He was about five feet eight, quite stocky, shoulder length gray hair and a short black going gray beard. He was wearing Black Sabbath tshirt, jeans and black boots.

“Jay, this is Jacob and the young lad here is his son Chris.”

I turned to see the young man come in to stand beside his dad, he must have come up to his dad’s shoulder and was skinny. He had dark brown, almost black hair, slightly pockmarked skin and a thin face. He wasn’t stocky like his father, but skinny, he was wearing jeans, a yellow tshirt and trainers.

I turned to hold out my hand and said “Hi, nice to meet you!”

He took my hand with a warm and friendly grip, “Thank you for everything. If your friends hadn’t turned up when they did, I don’t know what would have happened to us.”

“Jay, I am going to get cleaned up and after you talk to Jacob, I tell you what happened today.” Becky said.

“Ok, will talk to you later on.” I said.

I lead Jacob and his son to some seats near to the stairs and asked them to sit down.

“So Becky found you both?” I asked.

“Yeah, we had been working our way up from Newcastle and got stuck in the shop they found us in. We had those things banging on the door to the stockroom for the last three days. It was only by chance that the door was to a food store.”

“So what made you move up from Newcastle?”

“I have, well suppose I had a caravan up at Haggerston Castle. We were heading that way and needed to get some supplies so we stopped at the shop. There was nothing or anyone nearby so we went in and started to collect things. It was quiet and well Chris had started to take things out to the car. He rushed back in and said that he had heard something.”

“Let me guess a kind of keening noise?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s it mister.” Chris said.

“It’s Jay and not mister, go on Jacob.” I replied.

“Well, we had heard that noise and knew that it had something to do with them things so we ran to the back of the shop to try and hide. But we must have heard us or something and they followed us inside. We only managed to get the door closed when the first slammed into the door. After that we were stuck there till Becky and her group found us in there.”